John Fante (April 8, 1909 – May 8, 1983) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust (1939) about the life of Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer in Depression-era Los Angeles. It is widely considered the great Los Angeles novel, and is one in a series of four, published between 1938 and 1985, that are now collectively called "The Bandini Quartet". Ask the Dust was adapted into a 2006 film starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Fante's published works while he lived included five novels, one novella, and a short story collection. Additional works, including two novels, two novellas, and two short story collections, were published posthumously. His screenwriting credits include, most notably, Full of Life (1956, based on his 1952 novel by that name), Jeanne Eagels (1957), and the 1962 films Walk on the Wild Side and The Reluctant Saint. Early life Fante was born in Denver, Colorado, on April 8, 1909, to Nicola Fante from Torricella Peligna (Abruzzo), and Mary Capolungo, a devout Catholic of Lucanian descent who was born in Chicago, Illinois. Nicola Fante was a bricklayer and stonemason, who drank and gambled to excess, leaving the Fante family to experience bouts of poverty. Fante attended various Catholic schools including Regis High School, before briefly enrolling at the University of Colorado. He dropped out of college in 1929 and “hitchhiked to Los Angeles at age 24” to focus on his writing. Fante and Joyce Smart met on January 30, 1937, and were married on July 31 of that same year in Reno, Nevada. 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. With Mencken's help, in 1938 Fante published his first novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini. The following year, his best known novel, the semi-autobiographical Ask the Dust, appeared. “Much of the book focuses on Main Street and Pershing Square” in downtown Los Angeles, natural habitat of the “poor Los Angeles poet” who was the novel’s protagonist. Bandini served as his alter ego in a total of four novels, often known as "The Bandini Quartet": Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), The Road to Los Angeles (chronologically second in the saga, this is the first novel Fante wrote, but it was unpublished until