Fante in Abruzzo with Dacia Maraini

PESCARA - "Chump change" (translated in Italian by publisher Marcos y Marcos as "Angeli a pezzi") will soon be made into a movie, directed by Ralph Hemecker, one of the main directors of "X-Files" the TV serial which is highly popular in Italy too. "Chump change" is the first novel by Dan Fante, son of John (the cult author of such books as "Wait for Spring Bandini", "Ask the Dust", "The Road to Los Angeles", "West of Rome"). Dan visited yesterday the headquarters of "il Centro", in Pescara, before setting out on his short Abruzzo tour. The Fantes are actually originary of Torricella Peligna, which Dan is visiting for the second time (first time last September). The presentation tour of his new book "Mooch" (translated by Matteo Sammartino for publisher Marcos y Marcos under the title of "Agganci"), start today in Torricella Peligna to move to Pescasseroli tomorrow.

Today and tomorrow Dan will be in the company of a great Italian fellow-writer, Dacia Maraini, for joint presentations of their works. The Abruzzese reunion was organized by the Associazione John Fante, Torricella, from the Amici di Pescasseroli, in co-operation with "La pergamena virtuale", Pescara (Web site at the address http://www.interzen.it/pergamenavirtuale) and the Archaika studio, Chieti. The appointment is for today at 17 hours, at the Roman theater in Juvanum, near Torricella. Tomorrow, at 18, in the Town Hall assembly room in Pescasseroli. More meetings are scheduled in the next few days in Vasto, Ortona and Pescara.

"My play "Don Giovanni" will be staged in Los Angeles during this year ", explained Dan Fante, feeling comfortably at ease in the Centro offices, "while my first novel will soon be made into a film under the direction of Ralph Hemecker. When I told my mother (Joyce, a poet herself and very near also artistically to husband John Fante, Note of Editor) she would not believe that: me, with my first novel can make a film while my father never had as much luck, though he wrote a great many books in his life ".

D: Well, but from "Wait for spring, Bandini" a fine film was made starring Faye Dunaway, Ornella Muti and Joe Mantegna.
R: "Yes, but that happened a short while ago, and it was produced in Belgium. Moreover, it seems to me they did not closely followed the book. In my case things will be different, we are already working on the film script ".

D: In Coopers biography, published in the USA and in Great Britain, several interesting episodes on your father's life are told. Up to now it was assumed that, though he spent several months in Italy, he never came to Torricella Peligna. Cooper, however, claims that he did visit but, appalled by the conditions of the village (that was 40 years ago) he hurried away almost without stopping.
R: "I don't know, my father always told me he never visited. Though if Cooper writes that it is surely true. Cooper is very good, and he worked five years on John Fante's biography. He surely knows more than I do. I read passages from his book, while he was completing it, though I did not yet have a chance of reading it in full".