From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Fante (April 8, 1909 – May 8, 1983) was an Italian-American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust (1939) about the life of a struggling writer, Arturo Bandini, in Depression-era Los Angeles. It is widely considered the great Los Angeles novel and is one in a series of four novels, published between 1938 and... see more