A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J Gaines

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

Life Ø Gaines was born on a Louisiana plantation in 1933 Ø He was the oldest of twelve, raised by his aunt who was handicapped. Ø His family was poor, living in former slave quarters on the plantation. Ø At the age of 8, he worked in the sugar cane fields for 50 cents a day. Ø He could not attend high school in Louisiana due to “Jim Crow” laws, so he moved in with his mother in California when he was 15.

College Ø After serving in the U. S. Army, he attended San Francisco State University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature in 1957 Ø Won a writing fellowship to attend Stanford University.

The South Ø After Gaines moved to California, he read books that reminded him of the South. Ø He could not find any good characters in what he read, so he wrote his own stories. Ø His first short story was published in 1956. Ø He uses the South as the primary setting in his works. Ø He focuses on black life in rural America, specifically in the fictional town of Bayonne, Louisiana. Ø Often fictionalizes real locations and experiences from his own life.

Work Ø Gaines has written several novels; his best-known works are The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) and A Lesson Before Dying (1993). Ø A Lesson Before Dying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1993. Ø He was the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette from 1981 -2004, when he retired. Ø He was awarded a National Medal for the Arts by President Obama in 2013.