Ernest James Gaines (January 15, 1933 – November 5, 2019) was an American author. Four of his works were made into television movies.

Born in Louisiana, Gaines spent his early life living on the Riverlake Plantation before moving to California and later serving in the United States Army. Over the course of his life, Gaines worked a variety of temporary jobs to support his life as a writer. His works include themes such as race, family, community, and humanity.

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.

Early life

thumb|The Riverlake Plantation in Oscar, Point Coupee Parish, LA.|left

thumb|206x206px|West Elevation.

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. The oldest of 12 children, he was raised by his disabled great aunt, Miss Augusteen Jefferson, whose legs were paralyzed. According to A Gathering of Gaines by Anne K. Simpson, she chose to crawl using her upper body rather than use a welfare-donated wheelchair. Her considerable influence on Gaines and his writing is a recurring topic in interviews with him and---in an interview from the Southwestern Review in 1978---Gaines credits her as having "'the greatest impact on [his] life, not only as a writer but as a man". Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, living in the old slave quarters on the plantation.

left|thumb|203x203px|West and East Elevations.

Gaines's 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.

thumb|203x203px|South Elevation.

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. Then, in the Fall of 1955, Gaines used a $110-a-month military stipend provided to him through the G.I. Bill to enroll at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Between 1959 and 1964 were lean years for him: living on $175 per month, Gaines himself said during an interview that, though he only had enough money for his immediate, basic needs, "'No one twisted my arm to be a writer, I chose it.'"

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. He had the building where he attended church and school moved to his property.

According to the website of the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he "holds honorary doctorates from 19 universities". This is a more recent number compared to in Simpson's work, as at the time she wrote on him, he had five honorary degrees.

Personal life

During his college years, Gaines decided against marriage for himself.

  • 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)

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

Recognitions

Awards

  • National Medal of Arts 2012
  • Sidney Lanier Prize for Southern Literature (2012)
  • American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award (2001)
  • 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)
  • Humanist of the Year Award (1989)
  • 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

Honorary Degrees

  • Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Louisiana State University (1987)
  • Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Bard College (1985)

Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence

A book award established by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation in 2007 to honor Gaines's 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.

See also

  • Membership discrimination in California social clubs

References

Sources

  • The African American Registry
  • The Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
  • Teaching Materials for Works by Ernest J. Gaines
  • Samples of Gaines' writing
  • Interview with Gaines
  • Article about Gaines: "Going Home"
  • Interview with Gaines: "Going Home: the transcript"
  • Ernest J. Gaines Award
  • Kelly, Evelyn E., Ph.D., "'Pray if You Want To:' A Reevaluation of Religion in the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines" (2010)
  • Quotes source
  • Interview with Ernest Gaines for OxMag
  • Interview with Ernest J. Gaines, at Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, February 18, 2011
  • Christ Walked Down Market Street JSTOR archive of autumn 2004 Calloo Magazine V28, Johns Hopkins University