Award-winning classic novel of prejudice, community and what it means to be a man in the American South. New edition with an introduction by Attica Locke.

An Oprah Book Club selection Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize In a small Cajun community in the late 1940s, a young black man named Jefferson witnesses a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed. The only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Gaines explores the deep prejudice of the American South in the tradition of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and Toni Morrison's Beloved. A Lesson Before Dying is a richly compassionate and deeply moving novel, the story of a young black man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who hopes to ease his burden before the execution.

"Gaines has created a powerful and loving portrait of a small, mainly cane-cutting community ... A transcendent and heartfelt novel of redemption" - Guardian

"This is a fine and decent book that lives in the memory for its elegance and sadness ... like the best country songs, straight and true, unafraid of sentiment and written for the people it depicts, not simply about them" - Independent

"A narrative of the deep pain of the south... Gaines writes from the blues and his novel has redemptive power" - Morning Star

"Gaines has written a novel that is not only never maudlin, but approaches the spare beauty of a classic" - Kirkus

"This majestic, moving novel is an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives." - Chicago Tribune

"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer" - Boston Globe

"Enormously moving... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes" - Los Angeles Times

"A truly gripping read" - Sunday Herald