Mozart and Leadbelly
2005
First Published
3.80
Average Rating
192
Number of Pages
The beloved author of the classic, best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying shares the inspirations behind his books and his reasons for becoming a writer in this collection of stories and essays. Told in the simple and powerful prose that is a hallmark of his craft, these writings by Ernest J. Gaines faithfully evoke the sorrows and joys of rustic Southern life. From his depiction of his childhood move to California—a move that propelled him to find books that conjured the sights, smells, and locution of his native Louisiana home—to his description of the real-life murder case that gave him the idea for his masterpiece; this wonderful collection is a revelation of both man and writer.
Avg Rating
3.80
Number of Ratings
152
5 STARS
23%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
27%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
2%
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Author
Ernest J. Gaines
Author · 12 books
Ernest James Gaines was a novelist, short story writer, and teacher. Born to a sharecropping family, Ernest James Gaines was picking cotton in the fields by age nine and only attended school five or six months a year. When he was fifteen, he moved to California to join his mother and stepfather, because his Louisiana parish had no high school for African Americans. It was in California that he began writing. He attended San Francisco State University, served in the army, and won a writing fellowship to Stanford University. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts, and inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters as a Chevalier.
