Pietro di Donato

Who was Pietro di Donato?

Pietro Di Donato was an American writer and bricklayer best known for his novel, Christ in Concrete, which recounts the life and times of his bricklayer father, Geremio, who was killed in 1923 in a building collapse. The book, which portrayed the world of New York's Italian-American construction workers during The Great Depression, was hailed by critics in the United States and abroad as a metaphor for the immigrant experience in America, and cast di Donato as one of the most celebrated Italian American novelists of the mid-20th century.