John Fante (April 8, 1909 – May 8, 1983) was an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Italian descent. His 1939 work Ask the Dust, a semi-autobiograpical novel about life in and around Los Angeles, California, was the third in a series of four novels, published between 1938 and 1985, that are now collectively called "The Bandini Quartet". That book was made into a movie of the same name in 2006.