W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk is one of the masterworks of 20th century literature, a collection of essays as powerful today as it was nearly a century ago, in 1903, when it was first published. Du Bois begins with the simple observation that what he calls the ‘‘color line’’ is the single greatest problem facing this country. His essays move from history through sociology to spirituality in search of the authentic black soul.

Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom recounts the twenty-seven years he spent in jail as a result of his anti-apartheid work leading Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and South Africa’s peaceful transition to majority rule in 1994.

Ivan Turgenev’s ‘‘The District Doctor.’’ Gaines himself cites Ivan Turgenev as one of his more important literary sources, saying that he learned form from Turgenev. ‘‘I was very much impressed, not only with form, but with how [the Russians] used their peasantry, how they used their serfs.’’

William Faulkner’s Light in August is wellknown for its descriptions of the South. Gaines credits reading Faulkner with teaching him about dialogue, ‘‘especially when we’re dealing with our southern dialects.’’ Most of Faulkner’s works require a serious commitment from their reader, but all are worth the effort.

Ernest Gaines’s Bloodline, the collection from which ‘‘The Sky is Gray’’ is drawn, is a collection of loosely-interrelated stories well worth reading in its entirety.