1960-02-20 — Page 17

THE BOOK PAGE

FROM A RICH

WOMAN'S TOIL COMES

A WINNER

TN my home the electricity was always cut off" said

**IN

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1960.

I've got my back to the

wall, says Saroyan

AT the ex-princess, "We couldn't pay the bills, so we

used candles instead. The water was cut off too. We wash- ed in tubs which we filled from the river."

In a millionaire's home in Hyde Park Gate the ex- princess was telling me about her childhood.

Behind her pretty head a costly Picasso gleamed. It was flanked by pictures from one of the most valuable private collections of modern art in Europe.

Outside In the snow, the clustered limousines made the little Knightsbridge backwater Jook leo Downing Street at crisis time.

But we were not talking about Knightsbridge, of course. We were talking about Paris in the twenties-when Russian grand dukes took to tax)-driving and when Russion. Jadica-waiting had to do their waiting at cafe tables.

Never seen again

Knights-

By Robert Pitman

look at Paint

a

Ta time when pessimism is chic and despondency all the rage, it is hardly so surprising that William Saroyan should find himself isolated in his optimism.

He has arrived in London with 12 unproduced plays in his suitcase. We sat together in the American bar of the Savoy.

"I've got my back to the wail," he murmured into his drink with the relish of a man who has always found failure alluring, inspiring, magnificent.

His father was a falled pool, and one has the feeling "that Saroyan today, unproduced, un- ung, forced to sell off his work

Rejected