Frankétienne (born Franck Étienne on April 12, 1936, in Ravine-Sèche, Haiti) is a Haitian writer, poet, playwright, painter, musician, activist and intellectual.[1][2] He is recognized as one of Haiti's leading writers and playwrights of both French and Haitian Creole,[3] and is "known as the father of Haitian letters".[4] As a painter, he is known for his colorful abstract works, often emphasizing the colors blue and red. He was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009, made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres (Order of the Arts and Letters), and was named UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2010.[1][5]

Frankétienne
Born (1936-04-12) April 12, 1936 (age 88)
Ravine-Sèche, Haiti
OccupationWriter, poet, playwright, painter, musician
Notable awardsCommander 'Ordre des Arts et Lettres' (2010)

Early life

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Frankétienne was born in Ravine-Sèche, a small village in Haiti. He was abandoned by his father, a rich American industrialist,[2][4] at a young age and was raised by his mother in the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where she was a respected entrepreneur, owning her own business to support her eight children, managing to send him, who was the eldest, to school.[2]

He first began writing poetry around 1960. He published his first texts in 1964 and 1965. His first novel, Mûr a créver, was published in 1968. From 1977 onward he found success in theater.[6]

Selected works

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Frankétienne". Poetry Translation Centre. Retrieved March 4, 2014.
  2. ^ a b c Glover, Kaiama. "Francketienne" (PDF). Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 24, 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2014.
  3. ^ Douglas, Rachel (June 16, 2009). Frankétienne and Rewriting: A Work in Progress. ISBN 9780739136355. Retrieved March 4, 2014.
  4. ^ a b Archibold, Randal C. (April 29, 2011). "A Prolific Father of Haitian Letters, Busier Than Ever". The New York Times. p. A5. Retrieved March 4, 2014.
  5. ^ "Haitian writer Frankétienne named UNESCO Artist for Peace". United Nations. March 24, 2010.
  6. ^ Taleb-Khyar, Mohamed B. (1992). "Franketienne". Callaloo. 15 (2): 385–392. doi:10.2307/2931239. ISSN 0161-2492. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  7. ^ P. Schutt-Ainé, Haiti: A Basic Reference Book, 103
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Further reading

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  • Douglas, Rachel (2009). Frankétienne and Rewriting: A Work in Progress. New York: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-739-12565-6.
  • Glover, Kaiama L. (2011). Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Post-Colonial Canon. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-1-846-31499-5.
  • Hadjadj, Bernard (2012). Frankétienne, l'universel haïtien : entretiens. Marseille: Riveneuve. ISBN 978-2-360-13099-3.
  • Jonassaint, Jean (2008). Typo-topo-poéthique sur Franketienne. Paris: l'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-296-06787-5.
  • Jonassaint, Jean. "Frankétienne, Écrivain haïtien," Dérives 53/54 (1987)
  • Oakley, Seanna Sumalee (2011). Common places the poetics of African Atlantic postromantics. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 978-9-042-03408-2.
  • Schutt-Ainé, Patricia; Staff of Librairie Au Service de la Culture (1994). Haiti: A Basic Reference Book. Miami, Florida: Librairie Au Service de la Culture. p. 103. ISBN 0-9638599-0-0.
  • Trudel, Benoît Jean-Marc (2009). L'énonciation non-rationnelle dans le roman francophone des Amériques: les stratégies socio-poétiques chez Jacques Ferron, Hubert Aquin, Édouard Glissant et Frankétienne. London, Ontario: School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Western Ontario.