Author Ernest Gaines to speak on Nov. 8

Posted November 2, 2001

We all know—at least intellectually—that we’re goin g[to die]. The difference is being told, "Okay, it’s tomorrow at 10 a.m." How do you react to that? How do you face it? That, it seems to me, is the ultimate test of life.<<—Ernest J. Gaines

When I speak to black students about Hemingway, they often ask me what I expect them to learn from "that white man." I tell them: "All Hemingway wrote about was grace under pressure. And he was talking about you. Can you tell me a better example of grace under pressure than our people for the past three hundred years? Grace under pressure isn’t just about bullfighters and men at war. It’s about getting up every day to face a job or a white boss you don’t like but have to face to feed your children so they’ll grow up to a better generation."—Ernest J. Gaines

PORTLAND, Ore.—Ernest J. Gaines, one of the most popular and critically acclaimed authors in America, will present the Robert B. Pamplin, Jr., Society Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture, at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 8, in Agnes Flanagan Chapel, Lewis & Clark College, 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road. The lecture is free and open to the public.

"For almost four decades, the novels of Ernest Gaines have done for the people of Louisiana—black and white, Creole and mulatto—what the fiction of William Faulkner did for Mississippi," says John F. Callahan, Morgan S. Odell Professor of Humanities at Lewis & Clark College and literary executor of Ralph Ellison’s estate. "Gaines is a writer’s writer by virtue of his stunning fidelity to the speech and experiences of the people. By virtue of its authentic creation of the past, Gaines’s work has helped shape a changing society in Louisiana and the entire American South."

Gaines was the fifth generation in his family to be born on the River Lake plantation in Pointe Coupée Parish, La. His stories of rural Louisiana have garnered glowing reviews for their sensitive depictions of blacks struggling for dignity in the face of obstacles. At the age of nine, he was picking cotton in the plantation fields. He left the plantation when he was 15 to join his parents, who had moved to California during World War II. He attended San Francisco State University and later won a writing fellowship to Stanford University.

His novel, "A Lesson Before Dying," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and garnered numerous honors, including the Best Fiction Award by the National Book Critics Circle.

His career spans more than 35 years, and his works include "Catherine Carmier" (1964), "Of Love and Dust" (1967), "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1971), "In My Father’s House" (1978), "A Gathering of Old Men" (1983) and "A Lesson Before Dying" (1993). He also authored "Bloodline" (1968), a collection of short stories.

In 1974, his novel, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," was adapted for television and won nine Emmy Awards. "The Sky is Gray," a short story originally published in "Bloodline," was adapted for public television in 1980, and "A Gathering of Old Men," was adapted for CBS in 1987. "A Lesson Before Dying" has been made into a prize-winning film for HBO.

Gaines received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and was a Wallace Stegner fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, a John D. and Catherin T. MacArthur Foundation fellow. He is writer in residence at the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

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For more information, please contact:
Jean Kempe-Ware
Director of Public Relations
503-768-7960
kempe@lclark.edu

For more information, please contact:
John F. Callahan
Odell Professor of Humanities
503-768-7203
callahan@lclark.edu