ERNEST J. GAINES

n a small Cajun community in the late 1940s, a young black man named Jefferson witnesses a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed. The only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Gaines explores the deep prejudice of the American South in the tradition of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and Toni Morrison's Beloved. A Lesson Before Dying is a richly compassionate and deeply moving novel, the story of a young black man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who hopes to ease his burden before the execution.

Ernest J. Gaines''s new novella revolves around a courthouse shooting that leads a young reporter to uncover the long story of race and power in his small town and the relationship between the white sheriff and the black man who "whipped children" to keep order.After Brady Sims pulls out a gun in a courtroom and shoots his own son, who has just been convicted of robbery and murder, he asks only to be allowed two hours before he''ll give himself up to the sheriff. When the editor of the local newspaper asks his cub reporter to dig up a "human interest" story about Brady, he heads for the town''s barbershop. It is the barbers and the regulars who hang out there who narrate with empathy, sadness, humor, and a profound understanding the life story of Brady Sims--an honorable, just, and unsparing man who with his tough love had been handed the task of keeping the black children of Bayonne, Louisiana in line to protect them from the unjust world in which they lived. And when his own son makes a fateful mistake, it is up to Brady to carry out the necessary reckoning. In the telling, we learn the story of a small southern town, divided by race, and the black community struggling to survive even as many of its inhabitants head off northwards during the Great Migration.

Au début des années 70 la lutte pour l’égalité des droits est loin d’être terminée pour les Noirs américains. Pour certains c’est même le combat de chaque instant. Le révérend Phillip Martin, leader

Dans la Louisiane des années quarante, Jefferson, un jeune Noir, démuni et illettré, est accusé à tort d’avoir assassiné un Blanc. Au cours de son procès, il est bafoué et traité comme un animal par

Il a crié «Fils» et il lui a tiré dessus, en plein tribunal. Puis le vieux Brady a demandé que le shérif lui laisse deux heures, et il est parti. Si tout le monde connaît les faits ici, à Bayonne, en

In these five stories, Ernest Gaines returns to the cane fields, sharecroppers shacks, and decaying plantation houses of Louisiana, the terrain of his great novels A Gathering of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying. As rendered by Gaines, this country becomes as familiar, and as haunted by cruelty, suffering, and courage, as Ralph Ellisons Harlem or Faulkners Yoknapatawpha County.Gaines introduces us to this world through the eyes of guileless children and wizened jailbirds, black tenants and white planters. He shows his characters eking out a living and making love, breaking apart aand coming together. And on every page he captures the soul of black community whose circumstances make even the slightest assertion of self-respect an act of majesticand sometimes suicidalheroism. Bloodline is a miracle of storytelling.STORIES INCLUDE:A Long Day in NovemberThe Sky Is GrayThree MenBloodlineJust Like a Tree

This is the story of Marcus: bonded out of jail where he has been awaiting trial for murder, he is sent to the Hebert plantation to work in the fields. There he encounters conflict with the overseer, Sidney Bonbon, and a tale of revenge, lust and power plays out between Marcus, Bonbon, BonBons mistress Pauline, and BonBons wife Louise.

Grand, robust, a rich and big novel.Alice Walker, The New York Times Book ReviewIn [Jane Pittman], Ernest Gaines has created a legendary figure. . . . Gainess novel brings to mind other great works: The Odyssey, for the way his heroines travels manage to summarize the American history of her race, and Huckleberry Finn, for the clarity of [Pittmans] voice, for her rare capacity to sort through the mess of years and things to find the one true story of it all.NewsweekMiss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gainess now-classic novelwritten as an autobiographyspans one hundred years of Miss Janes remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hopeas seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. A historical tour de force, a triumph of fiction, Miss Janes eloquent narrative brings to life an important story of race in Americaand stands as a landmark work for our time.

A compelling novel of a man brought to reckon with his buried past... In St. Adrienne, a small black community in Louisiana, Reverend Phillip Martina respected minister and civil rights leadercomes face to face with the sins of his youth in the person of Robert X, a young, unkempt stranger who arrives in town for a mysterious "meeting" with the Reverend. In the confrontation between the two, the young mans secret burden explodes into the open, and Phillip Martin begins a long-neglected journey into his youth to discover how destructive his former life was, for himself and for those around him. on every page theres an authentic moment, or a dead-right knot of conversation, or a truer-than-true turn of phraseKirkus Reviews

A Vintage Shorts Short Story Month Selection The fish are nearly jumping in the bayous of Louisiana, but hoodoo magic is just as easy to find. And one day, Bobbys grandfather catches a haint. With his characteristically rich sense of place and deep understanding of the human psyche, Ernest Gaines, National Book Critics Circle Award winner and author of the classic novel A Lesson Before Dying, presents a raconteurs tale of rustic Southern living, A selection from Gainess collection of prose, Mozart and Leadbelly. An eBook short.

A compelling debut love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where blacks, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence--by the award-winning author of A Lesson Before Dying and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. After living in San Francisco for ten years, Jackson returns home to his benefactor, Aunt Charlotte. Surrounded by family and old friends, he discovers that his bonds to them have been irreparably rent by his absence. In the midst of his alienation from those around him, he falls in love with Catherine Carmier, setting the stage for conflicts and confrontations which are complex, tortuous, and universal in their implications.

A powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man--set on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s.The Village Voice called A Gathering of Old Men the best-written novel on Southern race relations in over a decade.

The beloved author of the classic, best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying shares the inspirations behind his books and his reasons for becoming a writer in this collection of stories and essays. Told in the simple and powerful prose that is a hallmark of his craft, these writings by Ernest J. Gaines faithfully evoke the sorrows and joys of rustic Southern life. From his depiction of his childhood move to California a move that propelled him to find books that conjured the sights, smells, and locution of his native Louisiana home to his description of the real-life murder case that gave him the idea for his masterpiece; this wonderful collection is a revelation of both man and writer.

A courthouse shooting leads a young reporter to uncover the long story of race and power in his small town and the relationship between the white sheriff and the black man who "whipped children" to keep orderin the final novella by the beloved Ernest J. Gaines. After Brady Sims pulls out a gun in a courtroom and shoots his own son, who has just been convicted of robbery and murder, he asks only to be allowed two hours before hell give himself up to the sheriff. When the editor of the local newspaper asks his cub reporter to dig up a "human interest" story about Brady, he heads for the towns barbershop. It is the barbers and the regulars who hang out there who narrate with empathy, sadness, humor, and a profound understanding the life story of Brady Simsan honorable, just, and unsparing man who with his tough love had been handed the task of keeping the black children of Bayonne, Louisiana in line to protect them from the unjust world in which they lived. And when his own son makes a fateful mistake, it is up to Brady to carry out the necessary reckoning. In the telling, we learn the story of a small southern town, divided by race, and the black community struggling to survive even as many of its inhabitants head off northwards during the Great Migration.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didnt commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting."An instant classic." Chicago TribuneA majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman."A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gainess position as an important American writer." Boston Globe"Enormously moving.... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." Los Angeles TimesA quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place weve been before to impart a lesson for living. San Francisco Chronicle