TEHRAN – “Dreams from Bunker Hill”, a novel by Italian-American writer John Fante, has been published in Persian.

Originally published in 1982, the novel has been translated by Mohammadreza Shekari for Ofoq publication.

My first collision with fame was hardly memorable. I was a busboy at Marx’s Deli. The year was 1934. The place was Third and Hill, Los Angeles. I was twenty-one years old, living in a world bounded on the west by Bunker Hill, on the east by Los Angeles Street, on the south by Pershing Square, and on the north by Civic Center. 

I was a busboy nonpareil, with great verve and style for the profession, and though I was dreadfully underpaid (one dollar a day plus meals) I attracted considerable attention as I whirled from table to table, balancing a tray on one hand, and eliciting smiles from my customers. I had something else beside a waiter's skill to offer my patrons, for I was also a writer.

Fante’s early years were spent in relative poverty. The son of an Italian-born father, Nicola Fante, and an Italian-American mother, Mary Capolungo, Fante was educated in various Catholic schools in Boulder and Denver, Colorado, and briefly attended the University of Colorado.

Ofoq published a Persian translation of Fante’s novel “Wait Until Spring, Bandini” by Shekari in 2021.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian edition of John Fante’s novel “Dreams from Bunker Hill”.

MMS/YAW