Denizé Lauture

Denizé Lauture was born in Haiti on May 11, 1946. The firstborn of thirteen children, he was the son of Lhomond and Ergenie (née Prevot) Lauture. 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 while attending evening classes at the City College of New York, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1977. Four years later, in 1981, he received a Master of Science in Bilingual Education.

Beginning in 1980, Mr. Lauture served as an assistant professor of French and Haitian culture at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, New York. Over the years, he also became a performance poet, consultant on Haitian culture and language, and children's book author. He contributed to numerous periodicals, including African Commentary, Black American Literature Forum, Callaloo, Litoral, and Présence Africaine.

Lauture has given readings at 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 community reading centers. A gifted author with a diverse body of work, he has received numerous awards for his writing.

Reflecting on his inspiration, Lauture said, “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.”