#RestInPower: Remembering The Celebs We Lost In 2019 - Page 23
Ernest J. Gaines
Source: Sophie Bassouls / Getty
Gaines, 86, was a noted and prolific author whose most popular works, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering Of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying, drew national attention and critical acclaim. Cicely Tyson starred in a TV adaptation of his book The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, stemming the decades of a Black woman’s story who endured slavery to the civil rights era. Tyson was nominated and won her first Emmy in 1974 for her performance. Gaines wrote to show the full humanity of Black Americans, and his work is widely studied in universities and colleges around the world. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for A Lesson Before Dying. Gaines died on November 5 at home in Oscar, Louisiana.
