John Fante has been defined by critics as a “real American writer” and as one of the most representative Californian writers of the 20th century. He was also labelled a “god of literature” by Charles Bukowski. While his prose burnt with desire and ambitions, his dreams often clashed against the hard edges of post-depression American social landscape. He waded the troubled waters of his time lending a profound and compassionate voice to a generation of integration-seeking migrants, betraying a conflictual yet profound relationship with his Italian and Catholic background. Although he spent most of his life in Los Angeles, his biography and works also reveal deep entanglements with Northern California and the Bay Area.
For this presentation at the Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco, Stephen Cooper, professor of English and author of Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante, joins Alessandro Testa, visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague, and Fante’s two children, Victoria Fante Cohen and Jim Fante.
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ABOUT
Stephen Cooper
Longtime Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach, Stephen Cooper is the author of Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante, editor of four other volumes by or about Fante, and a featured commentator in two European Fante documentaries. River of Angels, his first short story collection, will appear this Fall. He developed and coproduced the 2018 Netflix Original documentary Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski.
Alessandro Testa is currently (2025) Visiting Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Folklore at UC Berkeley, California, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague. He is interested in a variety of themes in religious studies and in the historical and cultural anthropology of European societies, themes about which he has published and lectured extensively.