I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
By:
- Synopsis
-
Maya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer.
Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration.
In this first volume of her five books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again.'
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity.”—James Baldwin
- Copyright:
- 2009
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781588369253
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780812980028
- Publisher:
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Date of Addition:
- 07/10/14
- Copyrighted By:
- Random House, Inc
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.