Armenian who grew up in the fields of Fresno, California, he traveled the globe, living in Paris, London, New York, and Los Angeles. He rubbed elbows with Steinbeck, traded insults with Hemingway, encouraged a young Toshio Mori, and stole a girl from Orson Welles. He was the only writer to turn down the Pulitzer Prize. Through his plays, short stories and novels, he exalted the mysteries of youth, pondered the impossibility of love, and spoke to this strange condition of being alive. Above all, he declared that the duty of a writer is to have one hell of a good time.

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