SANTO DOMINGO, August 6, 2009. – During a brief visit in the Dominican Republic to hold a conference at the largest Dominican University (USAD) and an art exhibition at the Ajoupa Gallery, Frank Etienne—a Nobel Prize candidate, who is also a poet, musician and painter, met privately with Ulrick Gaillard, BRA’s CEO to discuss the organization’s humanitarian work in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Also at the meeting were BRA’s Executive Director, Maria Virtudes Berroa and BRA’s International Medical Director and Board Member, Dr. Raymond Thertulien. CLICK to view images.

Having published more than 30 plays, poetry collections, and works of prose fiction, Frankétienne is widely heralded as one of the most important figures of modern Haitian literature. Some of his work, written under Haiti’s Duvalier dictatorship, depicts the plight of a segregated and oppressed society that has been a source for the largest migrations in history, leaving one of the most horrifying and saddest traces in its eagerness to reach better horizons. Frank Etienne’s work has been studied in many countries in Europe, the Caribbean and the United States.