Ernest James Gaines (January 15, 1933 – November 5, 2019) was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese.

Gaines was among the fifth generation of his sharecropper family to be born on the Riverlake Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.

Although born generations after the end of slavery, Gaines grew up impoverished, living in the old slave quarters on the plantation.

[4] When he was 15 years old, Gaines moved to Vallejo, California, to join his mother and stepfather, who had left Louisiana during World War II.

In 1956, Gaines published his first short story, "The Turtles", in a college magazine at San Francisco State University (SFSU).