Franco Lucentini was born on December 24, 1920, in Rome, Italy, to Emma Marzi and Venanzio Lucentini, a miller from the village of Visso, in the Marche region, who later owned a bakery in Rome.
Lucentini studied Philosophy at the University of Rome, where he was involved in a practical joke against the fascist regime in 1941, distributing paper streamers with anti-war and anti-fascist messages. He was arrested and spent two months in prison.
After graduating in February 1943, Lucentini was drafted into military service but was refused admission to officer candidate school due to his anti-fascist activities. After the Armistice, he worked as a junior editor for the "United Nations News" press agency in Naples.
Lucentini then worked for ANSA news agency in Rome, before moving to Prague and Vienna, where he spent time associated with ONA news agency. His experiences in post-war Vienna inspired his novella I compagni sconosciuti.
In 1949, Lucentini moved to Paris, where he met his lifetime partner Simone Benne Darses, 12 years his senior, and began his literary collaboration with Carlo Fruttero in 1957.
Lucentini and Fruttero worked together for the Einaudi publishing house, introducing Italian readers to the works of Jorge Luis Borges, translating books from many languages, and writing books and editing fiction anthologies.
As a successful literary team, they wrote books, directed book series and magazines, and edited anthologies for Einaudi and Mondadori. They also wrote columns for La Stampa, L'Espresso, and Epoca.
Lucentini and Fruttero's breakthrough work was the crime novel La donna della domenica, set in Turin, which was made into a film. They co-authored several more novels and non-fiction books, and their "F&L" column became a known and appreciated trademark.
