Ernest Gaines was born and raised on the same plantation where his ancestors once labored as slaves. Gaines was among the fifth generation of his sharecropper family to be born on a plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. He was the eldest of 12 children, raised by his aunt, who was crippled and had to crawl to get around the house. After his parents divorced, his mother remarried, and Gaines became the oldest in a … Learn more about Gaines’s life and work. For nearly a century, they had remained in the same corner of rural Louisiana, living in the same cabins as their forebears, worshipping in the same church, and working for the same family that had held them in bondage. Bill Gates lists Ernest J. Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying as one of his two favorite books. Ernest J. Gaines, American writer whose fiction, as exemplified by The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971) and A Lesson Before Dying (1993), reflects the African American experience and the oral tradition of his rural Louisiana childhood. Ther… When he was fifteen, Gaines moved to California to join his parents, who had left Louisiana during World War II. At the age of nine he was picking cotton in the plantation fields; the black quarter's school held classes only five or six months a year. Ernest J. Gaines Biography Ernest James Gaines was born January 15, 1933, on River Lake Plantation in Oscar, a small town in Pointe Coupee Parish, near New Roads, Louisiana. Ernest J. Gaines was born in 1933 on the River Lake plantation in Pointe Coupe Parish, Louisiana, the setting for most of his fiction; he was the fifth generation in his family to be born there. More About Ernest J. Gaines. Ernest J. Gaines was born in Pointe Coupee and a world renowned novelist, short story writer, and teacher. He was found Tuesday morning, November 5, 2019, by his wife at his home. Ernest James Gaines was born in 1933, on River Lake Plantation, in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Dr. Gaines will be deeply missed, but his work will live on. Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, living in old slave quarters on a plantation. Dr. Ernest J. Gaines is Survived by his Wife, Diane Sulney Gaines, stepchildren, grandchildren, siblings, neices, nephews, cousins, and friends. That became the setting and premise for many of his later works.