About the Author and the Text

William Saroyan (1908-1981) was an Armenian-American writer, born in Fresno, California, to a family of Armenian immigrants. He is famous for his warm, humorous and deeply human short stories and plays, written in a simple, natural style that celebrates ordinary people, family bonds and the joy of being alive. His well-known works include The Human Comedy and the play The Time of Your Life, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (which he declined).

The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse is one of Saroyan's best-loved stories. As the book itself introduces it, this is a story "about two poor Armenian boys who belong to a tribe whose hallmarks are trust and honesty."

The tale is narrated by nine-year-old Aram, looking back with nostalgia on a summer of his childhood. His high-spirited cousin Mourad turns up one dawn on a magnificent white horse and invites Aram to ride. Aram is torn: he is mad about horses, yet he knows Mourad could only have got the horse by stealing it — and no member of their proud Garoghlanian family, famous for eleven centuries of honesty, could ever be a thief. The boys keep and ride the horse in secret for a while, until the meeting with its rightful owner, the gentle farmer John Byro, brings the family's code of honour quietly but firmly back to the surface. Told with gentle humour and affection, the story explores honesty, childhood innocence and the beautiful logic by which the boys convince themselves that what they are doing is not really stealing at all.