Ernest j. Gaines was born in 1933, in Oscar, LA. In addition to The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a fictional personal history spanning the period from the Civil War to the civil rights movement, his novels include Catherine Carmier, Of Love and Dust, In My Father's House, and A Gathering of Old Men. In 1994 he received the National Book Critics Circle Award for A Lesson Before Dying.

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