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 & sentenced to death. Gaines explores the deep prejudice of the American South in the tradition of Harper Lee`s To Kill A Mockingbird & Toni Morrison`s Beloved. A Lesson Before Dying is a richly compassionate & deeply moving novel, the story of a young black man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, & a teacher who hopes to ease his burden before the execution.