Frankétienne Explained

Frankétienne
Birth Date:	12 April 1936
Birth Place:	Ravine-Sèche, Haiti
Occupation:	Writer, poet, playwright, painter, musician
Awards:	Commander 'Ordre des Arts et Lettres' (2010)

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]}

Early life

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

• Au Fil du Temps, a compilation of poems
• Ultravocal, a novel
• Pèlin Tèt, a play written in Haitian Creole
• Dézafi, a novel about life during under the Duvalier regime, the first ever in Haitian Creole^[7]
• Mûr à Crever, a novel
• Les Affres d'un Défi, a novel
• Désastre (12 janvier 2010), painting
• Difficile émergence vers la lumière, painting

External links

• Frankétienne author profile on Prince Claus Foundation site
• Île en île: Frankétienne author file (in French), with biography, bibliography, and audio

Further reading

• Book: Douglas, Rachel . Frankétienne and Rewriting: A Work in Progress . New York . Lexington Books . 2009 . 978-0-739-12565-6 .
• Book: Glover, Kaiama L. . Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Post-Colonial Canon . Liverpool, UK . Liverpool University Press . 2011 . 978-1-846-31499-5 .
• Book: Hadjadj, Bernard . Frankétienne, l'universel haïtien : entretiens . Riveneuve . 2012 . Marseille . 978-2-360-13099-3 .
• Book: Jonassaint, Jean . Typo-topo-poéthique sur Franketienne . l'Harmattan . 2008 . Paris . 978-2-296-06787-5 .
• Jonassaint, Jean. "Frankétienne, Écrivain haïtien," Dérives 53/54 (1987)
• Book: Oakley, Seanna Sumalee . Common places the poetics of African Atlantic postromantics . Rodopi . 2011 . Amsterdam . 978-9-042-03408-2 .
• Book: Schutt-Ainé, Patricia . Staff of Librairie Au Service de la Culture . Haiti: A Basic Reference Book . Librairie Au Service de la Culture . 1994 . Miami, Florida . 103 . 0-9638599-0-0 .
• Book: 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 .

Notes and References

1. Web site: Frankétienne . March 4, 2014 . Poetry Translation Centre.
2. Web site: Francketienne . March 4, 2014 . Hutchins Center for African & African American Research . Kaiama . Glover . June 24, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160624092451/http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/sites/all/files/Francketienne%20%20DU%20Bois%20online.pdf . dead .
3. Book: Frankétienne and Rewriting: A Work in Progress . March 4, 2014. 9780739136355 . Douglas . Rachel . 2009-06-16 .
4. News: A Prolific Father of Haitian Letters, Busier Than Ever . March 4, 2014 . The New York Times . A5 . Randal C. . Archibold. April 29, 2011 .
5. Web site: Haitian writer Frankétienne named UNESCO Artist for Peace . March 24, 2010 . United Nations.
6. Taleb-Khyar . Mohamed B. . Franketienne . . 1992 . 15 . 2 . 385–392 . 10.2307/2931239 . 15 April 2024 . 0161-2492.
7. P. Schutt-Ainé, Haiti: A Basic Reference Book, 103