George Anastasia

George Anastasia (born February 5, 1947, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a long time writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and American author. He is widely considered to be an expert on the American Mafia.^[1][2][3] He was an organized crime investigative reporter who was once targeted for death by then Philadelphia crime family boss John Stanfa.^[4] He has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer prize and won the Sigma Delta Chi Award. He has also been described by 60 Minutes television profile as "One of the most respected crime reporters in the country".^[1]

Education

Anastasia was born in South Philadelphia and raised in southern New Jersey. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (1969) with a B.A. in French Literature. He also studied at Swarthmore College and the University of Florida. Anastasia has served as an adjunct professor/lecturer at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and Temple University, and also has been a lecturer for a U.S. State Department-sponsored series of weeklong seminars on journalism and organized crime in Bulgaria (2004, 2007), Croatia (2005), Serbia (2006) and Italy (2007).^[5]

Literary works

The now retired former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter is the author of six books, which include “The Last Gangster” (ReganBooks/Harper Collins, March 2004), a New York Times bestseller that chronicles the demise of the Philadelphia mob. His other books are “Blood and Honor” (William Morrow & Co., 1991), which Jimmy Breslin called it “the best gangster book ever written”; NYT bestseller “The Summer Wind” (Regan Books/HarperCollins, 1999) about the Thomas Capano-Anne Marie Fahey murder case, and “The Goodfella Tapes (Avon Books, 1998), “Mobfather” (Kensington Books, 1993) and "The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies" (Perseus Books, 2011), co-authored with Glen Macnow. His work has appeared in Penthouse, Playboy and The Village Voice. He also has been featured on several network television news magazine reports about organized crime and has worked as a consultant on projects for ABC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel and National Geographic.

Anastasia is the author of a novella, The Big Hustle (Philadelphia Inquirer Books, 2001) and has contributed to two anthologies of Italian-American writers, “A Sitdown with the Sopranos” and “Don’t Tell Momma.” “Mob Files,” an anthology of articles he has written for The Inquirer was published in September 2008 by Camino Books.^[5]

References