Ernest J. Gaines

Ernest J. Gaines
Born	Ernest J. Gaines (1933-01-15) January 15, 1933 Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, USA
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	United States
Notable works	The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman A Gathering of Old Men
Notable awards	National Humanities Medal Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Ernest James Gaines (born January 15, 1933) is an African-American author. His works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works have been made into television movies.

His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines has been a MacArthur Foundation fellow, awarded the National Humanities Medal, and inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.

Biography

Gaines was among the fifth generation of his sharecropper family to be born on the plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. This became the setting and premise for many of his later works. He was the oldest of 12 children, raised by his aunt, who was crippled and had to crawl to get around the house. Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, in old slave quarters on the plantation.

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. Pointe Coupée Parish schooling for African-American children did not continue beyond the eighth grade during this time.

When he was fifteen, Gaines moved to Vallejo, California, to join his mother and stepfather, who had left Louisiana during World War II. His first novel was written at age 17, while 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 it to become his first published novel, Catherine Carmier.

In 1956, Gaines published his first short story, The Turtles, in a college magazine at San Francisco State University (SFSU). He earned a degree in literature in 1957 from SFSU. After spending two years in the Army, he won a writing fellowship to Stanford University.

Since 1984, Gaines has spent the first half of every year in San Francisco and the second half in Lafayette, where he teaches a creative writing workshop every autumn 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.

Gaines currently lives on Louisiana Highway 1 in Oscar, Louisiana, where he and his wife built a home on part of the old plantation where he grew up. He had the church he grew up with moved to his property. [2]

Bibliography

Books

• Catherine Carmier (1964)
• Of Love and Dust (1967)
• 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)

Short stories

• The Turtles (1956)
• Boy in the Double-Breasted Suit (1957)
• Mary Louis (1960)
• Just Like a Tree (1963)
• The Sky Is Gray (1963)
• A Long Day in November (1964)
• My Grandpa and the Haint (1966)

Filmography

• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, CBS Television (1974) - Directors Guild of America Award, eight Emmy Awards, nominated for a BAFTA award
• 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

Awards

• Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award (2001)
• Chevalier (Knight) of the Order of Art and Letters (France) (2000)
• The American Academy of Arts and Letters Department of Literature (2000)
• The National Governors’ 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)
• Louisiana Humanist of the Year (1993)
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation fellow (1971)
• National Endowment for the Arts grant (1967)
• Wallace Stegner fellow (1957)

Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence

An award sponsored by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and established in 2007 to honor Gaines' legacy. Submissions of fiction from African-American writers are eligible. The selected recipient receives a US$10,000 award and a commemorative sculpture created by artist Robert Moreland.

See also

• Membership discrimination in California social clubs

Sources

• The African American Registry
• Ernest J. Gaines Award

External links

• The Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• Samples of Gaines' writing
• Interview with Gaines
• Article about Gaines: "Going Home"
• Interview with Gaines: "Going Home: the transcript"
• Ernest J. Gaines Award
• Quotes source
• Interview with Ernest Gaines for OxMag