John Fante’s 100th Birthday April 7, 2009

Discovering John Fante is like tasting garlic for the first time. He is a quintessential Los Angeles writer, who penned the beautifully desperate words in Ask the Dust, “Los Angeles, give me some of you!...Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.” H.L. Mencken, John Steinbeck, Charles Bukowski, Robert Towne and Francis Ford Coppola number among the many fans who swear by Fante, who might have turned 100 this year if he hadn’t taken such lousy care of himself. (It’s a miracle he made it to 74.) Los Angeles was his muse, and inspired from him some of the most influential prose about the American immigrant experience and the development of a young writer ever to reach print. A panel of fans and scholars -- including Fante's children Jim and Vickie, biographer Stephen Cooper, KCRW’s Frances Anderton, and Esotouric co-founder Richard Schave -- visit Zócalo to celebrate the work of John Fante. Event is moderated by David Kipen, Director of Literature, National Endowment for the Arts.

Official Website: http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/lectureseries.php?event_id=244#