International Journal of Language & Literature

The Quest For Identity And The State of Belonging In The Stories Of William Saroyan Who Is Of Bitlis Origin
Mehmet Recep Taş, Kemal Erol

Abstract
William Saroyan was a Fresno-born first child of an Armenian Immigrant family that had migrated from Bitlis to the USA in 1905. Saroyan never breaks off the ties with his roots and his hometown Bitlis (a city located in the east of Turkey) despite the fact that his birthplace is the USA. He blends the feelings of homesickness, exile, longing and agony through his world-famous novelist, narrator and dramatist identity. The Human Comedy, My Heart’s in the Highlands, My Name is Aram, Cowards are Brave, From the USA to Bitlis, Poor People, I Love My Mother, Seventy Thousand Assyrians comprise his nearly sixty literal production that have been translated into many languages. At the age of early thirty-five, he was awarded with ‘‘Pulitzer Prize’’ that is regarded as the Nobel Prize of the USA. During this period in literal world, William Saroyan was mentioned with his coining the term ‘‘Saroyanesque’’ which reflects his authentic narration style. The aspect that heightened him to the best short-story author of the USA level was his authentic phraseology that is far from ornament, word play, and that is earnest and has a plain expression. The sense of belonging, his dependence to Anatolia, specifically his father’s hometown Bitlis, constitutes the core of his literal productions on theme basis.In this study; the drama of an Armenian family migrated from Bitlis to the USA due to the feeling of insecurity felt against the once oppressive political and social conditions, William Saroyan’s authorship adventure in the USA and his agonised life in foreign lands and the sense of belonging which reflects to his stories within the aspects of humanspace and the quest for identity have been searched.

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