Ernest J. Gaines

Ernest J. Gaines was an American author born in Louisiana who died in 2019. He is best known for A Lesson Before Dying, a 1993 novel that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. His other books include A Gathering of Old Men, In My Father's House, and The Tragedy of Brady Sims, and his work returns often to race, family, and community. Gaines was also a MacArthur Foundation fellow and received the National Humanities Medal.