Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and author of the classic The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest J. Gaines is one of America's most respected authors. But when he was a young boy, the possibility of having such a career would have been nearly unimaginable. Gaines was the son of African-American sharecroppers whose family had worked on the same Louisiana plantation since slavery.Yet, Gaines somehow carved out a career as an acclaimed writer.
