def author_clean(author):
    """ Clean an author and return the formatted string """
    replace = [".", ";", " ", ",", "_", "-"]
    author_split = author.strip().split(",")
    clean_author = ""
    if len(author_split) >= 2:
        last_name = author_split[0]
        first_name = author_split[1]
        for rep in replace:
            first_name = first_name.replace(rep, "")
        clean_author = last_name + " " + first_name
    else:
        for rep in replace:
            clean_author = author.replace(rep, "")

    return clean_author