Is a poet, painter, novelist and playwright from Haiti who writes in French and Haitian Creole.
Recently called 'the Father of Haitian Letters' in The New York Times (29th April, 2011), Frankétienne was born 12th April, 1936 in Ravine-Sèche. Alongside René Philoctète and Jean-Claude Fignolé, Frankétienne was one of the founders of 'spiralism', a literary movement that proved widely influential. He began to publish his poetry in 1964, and has since published dozens of collections, as well as novels and plays. He is also an accomplished musician and painter, and has exhibited his work internationally. His plays won him a large following in Haiti, where videotapes of the performances were clandestinely distributed. Always an outspoken opponent of dictators, particularly during the Duvalier years, Frankétienne always refused to join other like-minded intellectuals who were then living in exile and chose to remain in Haiti.
Frankétienne was a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009 and was made a Commander of the Arts and Letters in 2010.