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Ernest James Gaines (January 15, 1933 – November 5, 2019) was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works were made into television movies.[2]
Ernest J. Gaines | |
|---|---|
 Gaines in 2015 | |
| Born | Ernest James Gaines January 15, 1933 Oscar, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | November 5, 2019 (aged 86) Oscar, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Notable works | A Lesson Before Dying The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman A Gathering of Old Men |
| Notable awards | National Humanities Medal Ordre des Arts et des Lettres |
| Spouse | [1] |
His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, was awarded the National Humanities Medal, and was inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.
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Gaines was among the fifth generation of his sharecropper family to be born on the Riverlake Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. That became the setting and premise for many of his later works. He was the eldest of 12 children, raised by his aunt, who was disabled and had to crawl to get around the house. Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, living in the old slave quarters on the plantation.[3]
Gaines' first years of school took place in the plantation church. When the children were not picking cotton in the fields, a visiting teacher came for five to six months of the year to provide basic education. Gaines then spent three years at St. Augustine School, a Catholic school for African Americans in New Roads, Louisiana. Schooling for African-American children did not continue beyond the eighth grade during this time in Pointe Coupee Parish.[4]
When he was 15 years old, Gaines moved to Vallejo, California, to join his mother and stepfather, who had left Louisiana during World War II. He wrote his first novel at 17 while he was babysitting his youngest brother Michael. According to one account, he wrapped it in brown paper, tied it with string, and sent it to a New York publisher, who rejected it. Gaines burned the manuscript, but later rewrote the novel, which became his first published book, Catherine Carmier.
In 1956, Gaines published his first short story, "The Turtles", in a college magazine at San Francisco State University (SFSU). The next year, he earned a degree in literature from SFSU. After spending two years in the Army, he won a writing fellowship to Stanford University.
From 1981 until retiring in 2004, Gaines was a Writer-in-Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1996, Gaines spent a full semester as a visiting professor at the University of Rennes in France, where he taught the first creative writing class ever offered in the French university system.[5]
In the final years of his life, Gaines lived on Louisiana Highway 1 in Oscar, Louisiana, where he and his wife, Dianne Gaines, built a home on part of the old plantation where he grew up.[1][6] He had the building where he attended church and school moved to his property.[1][7]
Gaines died from natural causes at his home on November 5, 2019. He was 86 years old.[4][8]
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Books
- Catherine Carmier (1964)
- Of Love and Dust (1967)[9]
- Bloodline (1968)
- The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971)
- A Long Day in November (1971)
- In My Father's House (1978)
- A Gathering of Old Men (1983)
- A Lesson Before Dying (1993) – nominated for Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction (1993); Oprah's Book Club (1997)
- Mozart and Leadbelly: Stories and Essays (2005)
- The Tragedy of Brady Sims (2017)
Short stories
- "The Turtles" (1956)
- "Boy in the Double-Breasted Suit" (1957)
- "Mary Louise" (1960)
- "Just Like a Tree" (1963)
- "The Sky Is Gray" (1963)
- "A Long Day in November" (1964)
- "My Grandpa and the Haint" (1966)
- "Christ Walked Down Market Street" (1984 - publish 2004)[10]
Filmography
- The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, CBS Television (1974) – Directors Guild of America Award, eight Emmy Awards, nominated for a BAFTA award[11]
- The Sky Is Gray, American Short Story Series, PBS (1980)
- A Gathering of Old Men, CBS Television (1987)
- A Lesson Before Dying, HBO (1999); winner, Emmy Award for Outstanding Made For Television Movie
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- National Medal of Arts 2012
- Sidney Lanier Prize for Southern Literature (2012)
- American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award (2001)[12]
- The F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature award that is given annually in Rockville, Maryland, the city where Fitzgerald, his wife, and his daughter are buried as part of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival (2001).
- Chevalier (Knight) of the Order of Art and Letters (France) (2000)
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Department of Literature (2000)
- The Governor's Arts Award (2000)
- The Louisiana Writer Award (2000)
- National Humanities Medal (2000)
- National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (1993)
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow (1993)
- Dos Passos Prize (1993)
- Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree from Whittier College (1986)[13]
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Fellow (1971)
- National Endowment for the Arts grant (1967)
- Wallace Stegner Fellow (1957)
- Subject of a 2023 USPS Forever stamp from the Black Heritage series[14][15]
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A book award established by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation in 2007 to honor Gaines' legacy and encourage rising African-American fiction writers. The winner is selected by a panel of five judges who are well known in the literary world. The winner receives a US$10,000 award and a commemorative sculpture created by Louisiana artist Robert Moreland.[16]
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