Ernest Gaines: Past American Voice

We pay tribute to one of America’s best fiction writers, Ernest Gaines (1933-2019), whose career really took off with his fourth novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. A native of Louisiana, Gaines brought to life the pre-Civil Rights days for black Americans in the south through his fiction. This Past American Voices episode features excerpts from 1989 and 1998archive programs, featuring the MacArthur “genius” talking about his life and works, including his National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel, A Lesson Before Dying, that that didn’t become a bestseller until it was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club.