Gaines remembered for literary vision, Louisiana ties

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Novelist Ernest Gaines is being remembered a Louisiana treasure, a blessing and a "giant and a friend."
Gaines, author of acclaimed works including "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," died Tuesday of cardiac failure at age 86 at his home in Oscar.
Gaines, a native of Pointe Coupee Parish, taught writer at UL Lafayette for years.
Acclaimed novelist Ernest Gaines dies at 86
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement that Gaines “used his immense vision and literary talents to tell the stories of African Americans in the South..”
“A Lesson Before Dying,” published in 1993, was an acclaimed classic. Gaines was awarded a “genius grant” that year by the MacArthur Foundation.
Both “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1971) and “A Gathering of Old Men” (1984) became honored television movies.
The author of eight books, Gaines was born on a plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish.
His first writing experience was writing letters for illiterate workers who asked him to embellish their news to far-off relatives.
Bayonne, the setting for Gaines’ fiction, was actually New Roads, Louisiana.
Among his numerous awards, Gaines received prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations.
He held honorary doctorates from five colleges and universities.
The Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence will continue as his legacy.