Ernest Gaines: 02-27-1969

Abstract

In an interview recorded on February 27, 1969, Ernest Gaines discusses Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Faulkner, and Joyce; his childhood in Louisiana, and how the state has changed and not changed; jazz; H. Rap Brown; and stories from his collection Bloodlines. He starts the interview by reading from his novel "Of Love and Dust." He continues the interview by discussing Russian writers and jazz as influences on his writing, and then talks about how his writing breaks the molds of contemporary writers. Gaines concludes the interview by discussing how his writing portrays the South, and how attitudes in the South were beginning to change during that time period.