Irmi Horn
Irmi Horn presents John Fante’s WEST OF ROME. The film adaptation will be shown afterward.
John Fante (born April 8, 1909, in Denver, CO; died May 8, 1983, in Los Angeles, CA) was an American writer of Italian descent.
John Fante grew up in Colorado as the son of Italian immigrants. In 1932, he published his first short story. He was encouraged by the critic Henry Louis Mencken, with whom he developed a long-standing correspondence. In 1938, Fante’s first novel, “Wait Until Spring, Bandini,” was published, followed in 1939 by its sequel, “Ask the Dust.” This novel had a profound influence on the American poet and writer Charles Bukowski, who later said of his idol, “Fante was my god.”
After “Ask the Dust,” further novels were published, but none achieved the same success as his debut. To earn money, Fante then worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. His screenplay “Full of Life” was nominated for an Oscar in 1952.
In 1978, Fante went blind due to diabetes he had suffered from since 1959; both his legs had already been amputated in 1976. He dictated his last novel, “Dreams from Bunker Hill,” to his wife Joyce in 1982. As he lay dying in 1983, Charles Bukowski was one of his regular visitors at his bedside, and Bukowski described his impressions in the poem “Death of a Role Model.” Several more novels and short story collections were published posthumously.
Fante’s writing style is characterized by clarity and a close connection to everyday language.
“West of Rome” is the epitome of all family problems; here, Fante gets to the heart of what he has to say about family and marriage. This book is a love-hate declaration about the family in literary history. West of Rome was published posthumously in 1986 by Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, and in 1987 in German by Eichborn, Frankfurt.
INFORMATION
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