The Valley’s Armenia: Saroyan House Museum Plans

Your Central Valley, CA
July 13 2017

The Valley's Armenia: Saroyan House Museum Plans

By: Stefani Booroojian

Posted: Jul 13, 2017 08:05 PM PDT

YEREVAN, Armenia – He's an important name in Fresno, and literary history worldwide: Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and author William Saroyan. He's the namesake of our downtown theater — a bust of his likeness is displayed outside. And in Yerevan, Armenia more than 7,000 miles away, a full Saroyan statue is prominently displayed; larger than life on a busy city street.

William Saroyan was born in Fresno in 1908. Although he lived many places and traveled extensively, he died in Fresno in 1981. A house on West Griffith is where Saroyan spent the last 17 years of his life. And in August of 2018, to mark what would have been his 110th birthday, there is a plan to restore it and re-open it as the Saroyan House Museum.

Avag Simonyan is with the Intellectual Renaissance Foundation in Yerevan, Armenia. A non-profit with a mission to develop Armenian Heritage — even 7,000 miles away, in Fresno, California. Simonyan says the foundation has been studying William Saroyan and his work— much of which embraced his Armenian Heritage. The foundation formed a Saroyan club and holds events to celebrate the writer. Simonyan says when founder, Artur Janibekyan got wind of the poor condition of Saroyan's last Fresno home, he moved in. "They didn't preserve Saroyan's heritage. When our founder heard about that, he decided to bought it immediately. And we bought the house," Simonyan says.

Janibekyan is financing the entire project, to create a new type of museum. An out-of-the-box tribute that will include Saroyan's belongings, archives of his work, even a 3-D hologram of the writer himself that visitors can interact with. It's a concept created through a design contest in Armenia.

A unique tribute to a unique man who took pride in his heritage ."He give us a gift, the whole world a very important heritage because we have to preserve this heritage all over the world," says Simonyan.

The preservation will begin in the place of Saroyan's birth: Fresno, with more Saroyan tributes planned elsewhere in the future.

Video at

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS