Christopher David Castellani (born 1972, Wilmington, Delaware, USA) is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, A Kiss from Maddalena (2003) and The Saint of Lost Things (2005). A Kiss from Maddalena won the 2004 Massachusetts Book Award and was published in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia and Thailand; The Saint of Lost Things was also published in The Netherlands and Germany and was nominated for the 2005 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His books to-date have examined the experiences of rural Italians during World War II and of Italian-Americans in Wilmington following immigration to the United States during the 1950s.
Castellani is himself the son of Italian immigrants and was raised in Wilmington, Delaware. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from Swarthmore College (1994), M.A. in English Literature from Tufts University (1996), A.B.D. in English Literature from Tufts University (1998) and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University (1999).
He has taught English Literature at Tufts University (1997-2000) and Creative Writing as a visiting professor at Swarthmore College (2007). In 2004 and 2005, Castellani was a Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College, and has served on the faculty of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA (2006).
He lives in the Boston area, where he is the Artistic Director of the creative writing non-profit Grub Street, Inc., and serves on the faculty of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.