Gaines, Ernest J.

Gaines, Ernest J. (James)

(1933– ) writer; born in Oscar, La. The son of a plantation worker, he graduated from San Francisco State College. His simple fictional accounts of the struggles of Southern blacks were influenced by the oral traditions of rural Louisiana, and included The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) and A Gathering of Old Men (1983). He was writer in residence at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (1983).