Denizé Lauture

Mr. Lauture was born in Haiti on May 11, 1946. The firstborn of thirteen children, he was a son of Lhomond and Ergenie (a farmer; maiden name, Prevot) Lauture. Denize Lauture emigrated from Haiti to the United States in 1968. He was twenty-two years old and did not have a high school diploma. He worked as a welder in Harlem and attended evening classes at the City College of New York, and in 1977 Mr. Lauture earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. He received his Master of Science in bilingual education four years later (1981). Starting from 1980 Mr. Lauture worked at St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill, as an assistant professor of French and Haitian culture. Later he was a performance poet, consultant on Haitian culture and language and children’s book writer. He also has been a contributor to numerous periodicals, including African Commentary, Black American Literature Forum, Callaloo, Litoral, and Presence Africaine. He has given readings at such places as the United Nations, the American Museum of Natural History, the Poetry Society of America, the New York Public Library, Gracie Mansion, as well as many colleges, universities, and reading centers. Denize Lauture is a gifted author of a range of books. He was numerously awarded for his works. “The main source of my children’s books is my childhood in rural Haiti. I decided to write children’s books because I understood that, to save the world in its course toward destruction, concerned writers must reach the children’s minds and hearts.”