Miss Jane Pittman

Year and place published: 1971, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, and Auckland.

Type of Book: Fictional Autobiography

Ernest James Gaines was born in 1933 on River Lake Plantation in Louisiana. He is the author of six novels including the widely acclaimed Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Gaines' fiction deals exclusively with life in rural black America, specifically in the fictional town of Bayonne, Louisiana. His work explores universal themes such as the conflict between tradition and change, relationships between father and son, and the importance of maintaining dignity. Gaines learned the art of storytelling firsthand in his home because it was filled with visitors who gossiped and told elaborate ghost stories and folk tales. At 15, Gaines moved to Vallejo, California, where he spent hours in the library reading Willa Cather, Turgenev, and Chekhov. He also read novels dealing with life in the American South, which he found "untrue and unreal." In 1957 Gaines committed himself to the idea of becoming a professional writer in order to "truly write about what he knows and feels." He studied

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