Frantz-Antoine Leconte, French Area coordinator, was born in Port-au-prince, Haiti, in a Franco-Haitian and syncretic atmosphere that shaped his universe for ever. He studied at City University of New York and received his B.A.(1977), Master of Art(1980), his Master of Philosophy(1985) and his Ph.D. in 1989. His contribution to the world of the intellect seems to have been decided since birth. He is very committed to promote French, Francophone, Haitian literature and culture through C.U.N.Y.. What he does in his free time is precisely what he would like to teach and write about: literature, culture and history on which he has extensively lectured.

It is not surprising that over the years he has developed a profound taste for writing and publishing:

1-La tradition de l'ennui splénétique en France(1995)/ The Tradition of Existential Ennui and Spleen, his first book, undertakes a profound exploration of French philosophy and literature from the Middle Ages to Charles Baudelaire, the end of the 19 th century , and describes genuine pathological traditions attached to the literature and life of several generations of French poets.

2-1492:Le viol du nouveau monde(1996)/ 1492: The Rapt of the New World constitutes a serious indictment of the colonization of the new world by European powers. If there is a vivid depiction of the conquest, and a psychological profile of the conquerors, we also learn about the indigenous people of America, their life style, the tortures they had to endure and the tragic genocide that decimated them, their countries, their villages as well as their culture and civilization.

3-La République(1998)/The republic, a play could be perceived as a satire which stages the traditional, despotic, chaotic and absurd political situation intitutionalized by governments of the third world. The head of a terrorist state would not hesitate to sell his country piece by piece for a profit. All the passionate speech, nationalistic statements and alleged heroic actions are only parts of of a master plan to hold on to power for life, to build his personal wealth and to be considered as a god by the citizens of the country that he has alienated.

4-En grandissant sous Duvalier(1999)/Growing Up under the Duvalier, is a provocative analysis of the Duvalier era in Haiti, which traces the emergence of a political class from the American occupation of Haiti(1915-1934) to the advent of the Duvalier, who have, father and son, held Haiti captive under a reign of terror for about three decades,1957 to 1986.

5-Haïti:Le vodou au 3e millénaire (2002)/Haiti,Voodoo in the third millennium turned as one of the best contemporary accounts of voodoo in the last decade. One is able to grasp through eight essais the African origine of this too often denigrated religion, its inspirational relationship with the war of liberation leading to the independence of Haiti in 1804, its ubiquitous presence in the realm of politics and new perspectives for its survival in Haiti.

Dr.Leconte is a member of the American Association of Teachers of French, the Conseil International d' Études Francophones, the National Association of Scholars, the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, and La Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d Amérique.

If he loves teaching and his students, he loves as much poetry, music, soccer and the blue ocean.

Fleconte@kingsborough.edu

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