William Saroyan (1908-1981) was an internationally renowned Armenian American writer, playwright, and humanitarian. He achieved great popularity in the thirties, forties, and fifties through his hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. In 1939, Saroyan was the first American writer to win both the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life. He famously refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that "Commerce should not patronize art." He died near his hometown of Fresno at the age of seventy-two. The Time of Your Life was originally published in 1983 by Methuen.

All his life a man fights death, and then at last loses the fight, always having known he would. Loneliness is every man's portion, and failure. The man who seeks to escape from loneliness is a lunatic. The man who does not know that all is failure is a fool. The man who does not laugh at these things is a bore.
Arak Vagramian, a handsome son of Armenian immigrants, contended with his small-town bar-tending job in Fresno, is one day spotted by a Hollywood filmmaker. Although at first he refuses to leave his hometown, job, family and friends, soon the splendour of Hollywood lifestyle lures him. Shortly after he becomes Rock Wagram - a Hollywood heart-throb and celebrity. But at the peak of his career he decides to enter the army and serve his country during the war. When in 1950 he attempts to resume his acting career he battles with the many challenges which the fast changing industry throws at him.
Rock Wagram, first published in 1951, is an inspiring tale about one's search for the true identity in the unstable world of commercial success, where family ties and loyalties often have to be compromised.