Ernest J. Gaines is one of the best-known of contemporary black writers. He received popular and critical recognition for the publication and subsequent television production of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. His importance in this and other works is his ability to capture the experiences of the common black people of therural South. Through dialect, setting, and characterization, he has brought to life both a region and a group of people that had been previously ignored.

Gaines was born on a plantation in Oscar, Louisiana, to Manuel and Adrienne Gaines. He grew up in rural Louisiana, and at nine years old was already digging potatoes for fifty cents a day. One of his earliest influences was his Aunt Augusteen Jefferson who, though she had no legs, was able to provide for the young child. Rather than feel self-pity for her condition, she adapted to it and found...