John Fante (April 8, 1909 – May 8, 1983) was an American novelist, short-story and screenwriter of Italian descent. April 8 is the 98th day of the year (99th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 128th day of the year (129th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ...

Life

Born in Colorado, Fante's early years were spent in relative poverty. The son of an Italian born father, Nicola Fante, and an Italian-American mother, Mary Capolungo, Fante was educated in various Catholic schools in Boulder, Colorado and briefly attended the University of Colorado. Official language(s) English Capital Denver Largest city Denver Area  Ranked 8th  - Total 104,185 sq mi (269,837 km²)  - Width 280 miles (451 km)  - Length 380 miles (612 km)  - % water 0. ... The City of Boulder ( , Mountain Time Zone) is a home rule municipality located in Boulder County, Colorado, United States. ... The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder, UCB officially[2]; Colorado and CU colloquially) is the flagship university of the University of Colorado System in Boulder, Colorado. ...

In 1929, he dropped out of college and moved to Southern California to concentrate on his writing. He lived and worked in Wilmington, Long Beach, and in the Bunker Hill district of downtown Los Angeles, California. Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  Ranked 3rd  - Total 158,302 sq mi (410,000 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 770 miles (1,240 km)  - % water 4. ... General Phineas Banning Wilmington, California is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, with industry as its primary economical activity. ... The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ... Bunker Hill is the name of: A hill in Massachusetts in Boston: see Charlestown neighborhood A battle of the American Revolutionary War fought near (not on) the above hill: see Battle of Bunker Hill Several places in the United States: see Bunker Hill, Indiana Bunker Hill, Illinois Bunker Hill, Kansas... Nickname: Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates: , State California County Los Angeles County Settled 1781 Incorporated April 4, 1850 Government  - Type Mayor-Council  - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa  - City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo  - Governing body City Council Area  - City  498. ...

Fante's son Dan Fante is also a novelist, following his father's habit (that as Bukowski states in the introduction of the 1980's edition of Fante's Ask the Dust he was influenced by John Fante) of telling semi-autobiographical stories using a similarly named protagonist (e.g., Bruno Dante) in novels like Chump Change and Mooch. Dan Fante is a Los Angeles-based author. ... Ask the Dust is a 1939 novel by Italian-American author John Fante set in Depression-Era California. ...

Career

After many unsuccessful attempts at publishing stories in the highly regarded literary magazine The American Mercury his short story "Altar Boy" was accepted conditionally by the magazine's editor, H.L. Mencken. The acceptance of "Altar Boy" by The American Mercury was accompanied by a typically snappy reply from Mencken that read: "Dear Mr. Fante, What do you have against a typewriter? If you transcribe this manuscript in type I'll be glad to buy it. Sincerely yours, H.L. Mencken." To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) was a twentieth century journalist and social critic, a cynic and a freethinker, known as the Sage of Baltimore and the American Nietzsche. He is often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th...

By far, his most popular novel is the semi-autobiographical Ask the Dust, the second book in what is now referred to as "The Saga of Arturo Bandini." Bandini served as his alter ego in a total of four novels: Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), The Road to Los Angeles (chronologically speaking, the first novel Fante wrote but it went unpublished until 1985), Ask the Dust (1939), and finally Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982), which was dictated to his wife Joyce near the end of his life while he was suffering from complications caused by advanced diabetes, among them blindness. Ask the Dust is a 1939 novel by Italian-American author John Fante set in Depression-Era California. ...

Other novels include Full of Life (1952), The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977), and 1933 Was a Bad Year (1985; incomplete). Two novellas, 'My Dog Stupid' and 'The Orgy' were published in 1986 under the title West of Rome. His short story collection, Dago Red, was originally published in 1940, and then republished with a few additional stories in 1985 under the title The Wine of Youth."

Recurring themes in Fante's work are poverty, Catholicism, family life, Italian-American identity, sports, and the writing life. Anyone interested in the literature of Los Angeles would do well reading "Ask the Dust," as it has been referred to over the years as a monumental Southern California/Los Angeles novel by a host of reputable sources (e.g.: Carey McWilliams, Charles Bukowski, and The Los Angeles Times Book Review). More than sixty years after it was published, Ask the Dust appeared for several weeks on the New York Times' Bestseller's List. Fante's clear voice, vivid characters, shoot-from-the-hip style, and painful, emotional honesty blended with humor and scrupulous self-criticism lends his books to wide appreciation. Most of his novels and stories take place either in Colorado or California. Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      As a Christian ecclesiastical...

Among Fante's screenwriting credits are Walk on the Wild Side (1962), which stars Jane Fonda in her first credited film role, based on the Nelson Algren novel of the same name. Fante's other screenplay credits include Full of Life, Dinky, Jeanne Eagels, My Man and I, The Reluctant Saint, Something for a Lonely Man and Six Loves. As Fante himself often admitted, most of what he wrote for the screen was simply hackwork intended to bring in a paycheck, and as such it holds little interest for anyone besides the obsessive cinephile bent on viewing every film ever made, or the most serious student of Fante. Often the most interesting products of his screenwriting work are not the scripts or the movies themselves, but Fante's contempt for the Hollywood movie machine, and his conflicted feelings about art and business, about writing for posterity Vs. writing to make a buck. A Walk on the Wild Side is a 1956 novel by Nelson Algren, best known today by way of a 1962 film of essentially the same name directed by Edward Dmytryk. ... Jane Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. ... Nelson Algren (March 28, 1909 - May 9, 1981) was a famous American writer. ...

In the early 1980s, at the suggestion of novelist and poet Charles Bukowski (who claims in his preface to Fante's "Ask the Dust" that "Fante was my god") Black Sparrow Press began to republish the (then out-of-print) works of Fante, creating a resurgence in his popularity. When Black Sparrow was reconfigured on its founder's retirement in 2002, publication of John Fante's works was taken over by HarperCollins under the Ecco imprint, but not before Black Sparrow Press could publish the last of Fante's uncollected stories in The Big Hunger (2000). Full of Life: The Biography of John Fante was published by Stephen Cooper also in 2000, followed by The Fante Reader in 2003. Also available are two collections of letters, Fante/Mencken: A Personal Correspondence (1989) and Selected Letters (1991). Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was an influential Los Angeles poet and novelist. ... Black Sparrow Books, formerly known as Black Sparrow Press, is a small book publisher and an imprint of David R. Godin, Publisher. ... HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ... ECCO is a Danish shoe manufacturer. ...

Film adaptations

Dominique Deruddere directed the movie version of Wait Until Spring, Bandini, which was released in 1989. And in March 2006, Paramount Pictures released Ask the Dust, directed by Robert Towne and starring Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, and Donald Sutherland. In December 2006 a 2001 documentary film about Fante, entitled A Sad Flower in the Sand (directed by Jan Louter) aired on the PBS series Independent Lens. Dominique Deruddere (born June 15, 1957, Turnhout, Belgium) is a Belgian film director. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... Ask the Dust is a 2006 film based on the book Ask the Dust by John Fante. ... Towne in the 1960 movie Last Woman on Earth Robert Towne (born November 23, 1934) is an American actor, screenwriter and director. ... Colin James Farrell (born May 31, 1976) is an Irish actor who has appeared in several high-profile Hollywood films including Daredevil, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth and S.W.A.T.. // Farrell was born prematurely, weighing 1 pound 6 ounces, in Castleknock, Dublin to Rita and Eamon Farrell. ... Salma Hayek Jiménez (born September 2, 1966) is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican actress, Daytime Emmy-winning director, and a film and television producer. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Airing weekly on PBS and distributed by ITVS, the Emmy award-winning series Independent Lens is like an independent film festival in your living room. ...

Bibliography

• Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938)
• Ask the Dust (1939)
• Dago Red (1940), short story collection
• Full of Life (1952)
• The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977)
• Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982)
• 1933 Was a Bad Year (posthumously, 1985; incomplete)
• Road to Los Angeles (posthumously, 1985)
• West of Rome (posthumously, 1986), two novellas
• The Big Hunger (posthumously, 2000), short story collection

External links

• Who Was John Fante? at Salon.com
• 2007 photographs of the ruined apartment house where Fante wrote "Ask the Dust"
• Italian-English website about Fante's family
• A SAD FLOWER IN THE SAND site for Independent Lens on PBS
• John Fante's Dreams of Bunker Hill tour from L.A. bus adventure company Esotouric
• 1940 John Fante story about Bunker Hill, from the Los Angeles Times
• John Fante at the Internet Movie Database
• Wait Until Spring, Bandini at the Internet Movie Database
• Ask the Dust at the Internet Movie Database