Ernest James Gaines was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works were made into television movies.

A Lesson Before Dying is Ernest J. Gaines' eighth novel, published in 1993. It was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel is based on the true story of Willie Francis, a young Black American man best known for surviving a failed electrocution in the state of Louisiana in 1946.