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Ernest J. Gaines is one of the best known of contemporary black writers. He received popular and critical recognition for the publication and subsequent television production of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. His importance in this and other wor...

Ernest J. Gaines is one of the best-known of contemporary black writers. He received popular and critical recognition for the publication and subsequent television production of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. His importance in this and other wor...

[This entry was updated by Keith E. Byerman (Indiana State University) from his entry in DLB 152: American Novelists Since World War II, Fourth Series.] Ernest J. Gaines has since the publication of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman in 1971 establis...

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines Born in Oscar, Louisiana in 1933, Ernest J. Gaines has won wide respect for his realistic, quietly powerful novels portraying African American life in a rural Louisiana plantation setting. Nearly all of his...

A Lesson Before Dying is Ernest J. Gaines' eighth novel, published in 1993. It was selected for Oprah's Book Club in...

[In the following essay, Jaschik discusses Gaines's views on his work as an author and educator, the extent of his influence as a Southern black writer, and his belief that an "appreciation of humanity" is the key to his success.]

[In the following excerpt, Summer examines the influence of Gaines's life on his novels.]

[Yardley is an American critic and educator who has written a weekly syndicated book review since 1974. In the following review, he favorably assesses A Lesson before Dying.]

A consideration of the ways in which Friel reveals character and emotion in Act 2 scene 2 of "Translations."

In Ernest J. Gaines's "A Lesson Before Dying," racism experienced by African-Americans and the causes of the breakdown of black families is explored. His compelling chronicle of two men who reach a symbolic transformation forces the reader to reevaluate what constitutes true valor.

A look at how life's lessons can effect change in people, through the context of Ernest A. Gaines' novel A Lesson Before Dying.