In 1923 he wrote the novel Question de Couleurs: Blanches et Noirs, Roman de Moeurs ( i.e. An issue of Colors: Whites and Blacks, a Novel)[1][2] Born in Guadeloupe, Oruno Lara worked from the age of 11 as an apprentice typographer at the press for the paper La Vérité, which had been founded in 1888.
[3] Oruno Lara eventually created the journal La Guadeloupe Littéraire, publishing the work of local poets.
He wrote in the preface to his 1921 book La Guadeloupe physique, économique, agricole, commerciale, financière, politique et sociale de la découverte à nos jours (1492-1900):[4] "It is really the job of one of us to write our own history; and when born of yesterday we seem to have neither past nor official identity, it behooves one of us to erect a more beautiful past...
That same year he participated in demonstrations against the electoral campaign for the legislative Assembly of the candidate Bissette who was an ally of the French planters of Martinique.
[3] Born in 1822, Moïse Lara worked hard to leave his children extensive documentation of events that he witnessed, in addition to his convictions.
[3] This legacy likely motivated Oruno Lara's publication of his book on Guadeloupean history in 1921 which he published with the help of his wife—teacher and poet Agathe Réache—against great odds: unemployment, archives far away in Europe, war and disease.
Oruna Lara's great-grandson is Kernan Heinz, named after a well-known Spanish historian called Hernán Cortés.