Frankétienne was born Franck Étienne on April 12, 1936, in Ravine-Sèche, Haiti and died on February 20, 2025. He is a Haitian writer, poet, playwright, painter, musician, activist, and intellectual. At a young age, his father, a wealthy American industrialist, abandoned him. His mother raised him in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where she worked as a street merchant to support her eight children. She managed to send him, the eldest, to school.Franketienne is recognized as one of Haiti's leading writers and playwrights of both French and Haitian Creole, and is "known as the father of Haitian letters." 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. "Etienne's gestural style is apparent in his energetic and forced representations," says Gerald Alexis in his book Peintres Haitiens. Get the Peintres Haitiens book here!Franketienne thus contributes to offering a positive image of Haiti, at a time when the credit of this painful island is totally in deficit due to the irresponsibility and obscurantism of recent governments. Frankétienne received numerous tributes in multiple foreign university centers.