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Ernest J. Gaines

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Ernest J. Gaines
Gaines in 2015
Gaines in 2015
BornErnest James Gaines
(1933-01-15)January 15, 1933
Oscar, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedNovember 5, 2019(2019-11-05) (aged 86)
Oscar, Louisiana, U.S.
OccupationWriter
Notable worksA Lesson Before Dying
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
A Gathering of Old Men
Notable awardsNational Humanities Medal
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Spouse
​
(m. 1993)​
[1]

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]

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

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The Riverlake Plantation in Oscar, Point Coupee Parish, LA.

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.[3] 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."[4] Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, living in the old slave quarters on the plantation.[5]

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.[6]

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.

Education

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College

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In 1951, after graduating from high school and as the first male in his family to do so, Gaines enrolled at Vallejo Junior College.[7] After studying there for two years, Gaines received an Associate of Arts in Journalism.[7] He was then drafted by the United States Army, completed basic training, and served a two-year stint in Guam before being discharged in 1955. While stationed in Guam, Gaines entered a writing competition organized by the U.S. Far East Command in Japan and was awarded two monetary prizes for the short stories he submitted.[7][8] 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).[7][9] There is contradictory information as to what Gaines studied while there. According to Simpson, he studied English and social studies.[7] However, in Ernest J. Gaines: A Critical Companion, Karen Carmean wrote that Gaines studied language arts as his major with a minor in English literature.[8]

In 1956, Gaines published his first short story, "The Turtles", in a college magazine at SFSU.

Stanford University

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In 1957, Gaines graduated from SFSU with a Bachelor of Arts in Language Arts. That same year, Gaines became a fellow after he submitted three of his stories for consideration for the Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship at Stanford University.[10] During his time there, his professors offered constructive feedback that would impact his overall writing style.[10][11] This, too, was the year that Gaines gave himself a driving ultimatum: ten years to become a successful writer and to decide whether or not he was satisfied with his accomplishments.[10][12][11] According to Gaines, it was exactly ten years later that he started to make it as a professional writer.[10][12][11]

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.[13]

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][14] He had the building where he attended church and school moved to his property.[1][15]

Gaines died from natural causes at his home on November 5, 2019. He was 86 years old.[6][16]

Bibliography

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Books

Short stories

Filmography

Awards

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Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence

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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.[24]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Ernest J. Gaines". Lizzie Skurnick Books. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  2. ^ Lockhart, John M. "Words & Music", The Riverside Reader Archived December 14, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, February 4, 2008, p. 1.
  3. ^ Simpson, Anne Key (1991). A Gathering of Gaines: the Man and the Writer. Lafayette, La: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana. ISBN 978-0-940984-69-1.
  4. ^ Gaines, Ernest J.; Lowe, John C. (1995). Lowe, John (ed.). Conversations with Ernest Gaines. Literary conversations series. Jackson. Miss: Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0-87805-783-2.
  5. ^ Carl, Rollyson (December 20, 2023). "As Yoknapatawpha Was to Faulkner, So Cherie Quarters Was to Ernest J. Gaines". The New York Sun. Retrieved January 6, 2024.
  6. ^ a b "Ernest Gaines has died at his home in Pointe Coupee Parish". KATC. November 5, 2019. Retrieved November 5, 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, Anne Key (1991). A Gathering of Gaines: the Man and the Writer. Lafayette, La: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana. ISBN 978-0-940984-69-1.
  8. ^ a b Carmean, Karen (1998). Ernest J. Gaines: a critical companion. Critical companions to popular contemporary writers. Westport (Conn.): Greenwood press. ISBN 978-0-313-30286-2.
  9. ^ Gaines, Ernest J.; Lowe, John C. (1995). Lowe, John (ed.). Conversations with Ernest Gaines. Literary conversations series. Jackson. Miss: Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0-87805-783-2.
  10. ^ a b c d Simpson, Anne Key (1991). A Gathering of Gaines: the Man and the Writer. Lafayette, La: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana. ISBN 978-0-940984-69-1.
  11. ^ a b c Carmean, Karen (1998). Ernest J. Gaines: a critical companion. Critical companions to popular contemporary writers. Westport (Conn.): Greenwood press. ISBN 978-0-313-30286-2.
  12. ^ a b Gaines, Ernest J.; Lowe, John C. (1995). Lowe, John (ed.). Conversations with Ernest Gaines. Literary conversations series. Jackson. Miss: Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0-87805-783-2.
  13. ^ Wolfgang Lepschy and Ernest J. Gaines, "A MELUS Interview :Ernest J. Gaines", The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), Volume 24, Number 1 (Spring 1999).
  14. ^ Seelye, Katharine Q. (October 20, 2010). "Writer Tends Land Where Ancestors Were Slaves". The New York Times. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
  15. ^ Drash, Wayne (November 9, 2010). "Author Ernest Gaines comes home to where his ancestors were enslaved". CNN.
  16. ^ Ulkins, Graham; Scottie Hunter (November 8, 2019). "Famed Louisiana author Ernest Gaines dies; funeral service details announced". WAFB.
  17. ^ Michael Bibler. "Same-Sex Intimacy in Fiction About Southern Plantations", Southern Spaces, July 8, 2009. In the second section of this talk, Bibler addresses intimacy in Of Love and Dust.
  18. ^ Ernest J. Gaines (Autumn 2005). "Christ Walked down Market Street". Callaloo. 28 (4): 907–913. doi:10.1353/cal.2006.0011. JSTOR 3805562. S2CID 161539518.
  19. ^ "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman - Awards". IMDb. Retrieved November 5, 2019.
  20. ^ "Ernest J. Gaines Biography and Interview". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. May 4, 2001.
  21. ^ "Honorary Degrees | Whittier College". www.whittier.edu. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
  22. ^ "U.S. Postal Service Reveals Stamps for 2023". United States Postal Service. October 24, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2022.
  23. ^ "USPS 46th Black Heritage Stamp: Ernest J. Gaines Forever Stamp". about.usps.com. Retrieved December 2, 2023.
  24. ^ "The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence". The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Retrieved November 5, 2019.

Sources

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