Frank Martinus Arion, pseudonym of Frank Efraim Martinus, was born on December 17, 1936 in Curaçao

Curaçao

Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao , which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 in the Netherlands Antilles

Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles , also referred to informally as the Dutch Antilles, was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of two groups of islands in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao , in Leeward Antilles just off the Venezuelan coast; and Sint...

. He is an author and language advocate.

He moved to the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1955 and returned to Curaçao in 1981. Some of his works include The Last Freedom (De laatste vrijheid) and Double Play (Dubbelspel) both published in 1973.
He currently heads the Curaçao Language Institute promoting the use of Papiamento

Papiamento

Papiamento is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands, having the official status on the islands of Aruba and Curaçao. The language is also recognized on Bonaire by the Dutch government....

, the local creole

Creole language

A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...

language.

External links

• Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature website on Arion