Ernest J. Gaines

Author profile

born

January 15, 1933 in Pointe Coupee Parish (Louisiana) , The United States

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction

About this author

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Born to a sharecropping family, Ernest Gaines was picking cotton in the fields by age nine and only attended school five or six months a year. When he was fifteen, he moved to California to join his mother who had relocated during World War II, and began writing. He attended San Francisco State University, served in the army, and won a writing fellowship to Stanford University. Gaines has been a MacArthur Foundation fellow, inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded the National Humanities Medal, and inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters as a Chevalier. He and his wife split their time between Louisiana and San Francisco.

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Books by Ernest J. Gaines

Average rating: 3.78 · 15,375 ratings · 1,385 reviews · 19 distinct works

	A Lesson Before Dying 3.76 avg rating — 12,079 ratings — published 1994 — 30 editions	My rating:
	The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman 3.88 avg rating — 1,606 ratings — published 1971 — 24 editions	My rating:
	A Gathering of Old Men 3.87 avg rating — 1,204 ratings — published 1983 — 13 editions	My rating:
	Of Love and Dust 3.91 avg rating — 129 ratings — published 1968 — 3 editions	My rating:
	In My Father's House 3.68 avg rating — 113 ratings — published 1978 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Bloodline: Five Stories 3.78 avg rating — 86 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	Catherine Carmier 3.63 avg rating — 60 ratings — published 1972 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Mozart and Leadbelly by Ernest J. Gaines, Reggie Young (Editor), Marcia Gaudet (Compiler) 3.63 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 2005 — 4 editions	My rating:
	The Sky Is Gray 3.67 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1995	My rating:
	Cambridge Wizard Student Guide a Lesson Before Dying 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2006	My rating:

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Quotes by Ernest J. Gaines

“I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.”
― Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying

24 people liked it

“Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ”
― Ernest J. Gaines

19 people liked it

“I have no more to say except this: We must live with our own conscience.”
― Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying

tags: life

12 people liked it

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