Release date: May 12, 2008
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Author Ernest J. Gaines to Receive Honorary Degree From Emory May 12

Ernest J. Gaines, author of “A Lesson Before Dying” and other American classics, will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree during Emory University’s commencement Monday, May 12. The acclaimed novelist and short story writer joins three other honorary degree recipients this year: Home Depot co-founder and philanthropist Bernie Marcus, who will deliver the keynote address; Regis College president and mental health advocate Mary Jane England; and biologist Edward O. Wilson.

Gaines was born in 1933 in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. He draws on this setting for his fictional works, which explore issues of manhood for African-American men and the social pressures of the Deep South before the Civil Rights era.

A maternal aunt, Augusteen Jefferson, raised Gaines and served as the model for his best-known fictional character, Miss Jane Pittman. At the age of 15, Gaines rejoined his mother and step-father in California since there was not a high school he could attend in Pointe Coupee Parish and because it was against the law in Louisiana for people of color to enter public libraries. After finally visiting a library, Gaines says, “I discovered the Russians – Turgenev, Gogol, who spoke of the peasants. Then the French – Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola. But no one was telling me the story of my people. Thus, a teenager, I decided to write.”

“The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” published in 1971, was made into a TV movie that won nine Emmys. “A Lesson Before Dying,” published in 1993, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, won the National Book Critics Circle for fiction and was adapted into another Emmy-winning TV film. Gaines’ many other awards include the National Humanities Medal, presented by President Bill Clinton, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for lifetime achievements. In 1996, he was named a “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” one of France’s highest decorations. He is Writer-in-Residence Emeritus at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

Emory University (www.emory.edu) is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate experience, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. Perennially ranked as one of the country's top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report, Emory encompasses nine academic divisions as well as the Carlos Museum, The Carter Center, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, Georgia’s largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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