Umberto Fracchia (5 April 1889 - 5 December 1930) was an Italian writer who died young. He was intensely active professionally for slightly more than two decades, between 1908 and 1930. He began writing short stories at an early age, but built his career initially as a journalist and literary critic. During 1919/20 he broke into the movie business, directing several films in quick succession, before his professional focus returned abruptly to writing. Over the next decade, in parallel with his journalistic work, he published a succession of novels and short stories which achieved significant commercial success. He also, in 1925, launched La Fiera Letteraria, a broadly-based literary magazine which he ran successfully for a couple of years with a skeleton staff consisting principally of him