**"The Inspiring Life of Maya Angelou"**

Maya Angelou's life was a remarkable journey filled with both hardships and triumphs. As a child, her talent to endure stemmed from ignorance of alternatives. But when she grew up and discovered the harsh realities, she became a powerful voice. Nominated for numerous awards, she was a beloved champion of her people. Oprah Winfrey was astounded to read a story so similar to her own in Angelou's work.

Angelou was born Marguerite and renamed by her brother. Her parents' calamitous marriage ended, and she and Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother in Arkansas. In that poor, segregated community, the children had a unique perspective on whites. Despite the difficulties, she had fond memories of growing up under her grandmother's rules.

Later in her teens on the West coast, she found herself in a junkyard but was welcomed into a community of diverse young people. Their mutual respect and support changed her thinking and gave her a sense of belonging. This is just the beginning of her seven-book autobiography, which is an easy and insightful read, offering valuable lessons about life and tolerance, regardless of one's interest in history.

5★

I'm truly ashamed that it has taken me such a long time to read this book. Maya Angelou is an inspiration to countless people, and thus, reading about her childhood and adolescence was truly a special experience.

Her autobiography is both tragic and hopeful simultaneously. So much has changed since Angelou's childhood. Segregation, for instance, which was a harsh reality back then, has largely been overcome. Additionally, colourism within the black community has also lessened to some extent.

The fact that she lived through that difficult period of history and is still alive to witness the election of the first Black president in US history is simply remarkable. It serves as a testament to her strength and perseverance.

Reading her story has made me appreciate the progress that has been made and has also given me a deeper understanding of the challenges that she and others like her had to face. It is a powerful reminder of the importance of never giving up and of fighting for a better future.

UPDATE from the third reading: It's still beautiful, and I keep discovering new details and new accents in it. Notice how Maya Angelou writes about light when she describes Momma's Store. It's always bright there. And how it contrasts with the darkness that descends upon it when the Klan is about to come. And notice how beautifully Maya Angelou writes about the women who raised her. In Maya Angelou's life, there were many traumatic situations, yet she had a community that supported and understood her. This tenderness in describing relationships amazes me. I will keep coming back to it.

I highly recommend you to listen to episode number 118 :) There is an interview with the translator, there are amazements, there is a piece of history, there is about language, about emotions - listen and read.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7b6X...

Maya Angelou. A writer, an activist, a campaigner, a poet, and in her autobiography, in this first volume, a child, and later a young woman who feels too much, looks sensitively, and masterfully manipulates language to show a larger, more complex picture through details. There is a lot that could be said about this book (and I will definitely do so in the podcast with the translator (whom I really love :D)), but what amazes me the most is Maya Angelou's attention to moments. We all have experienced moments in our lives that were crucial for us, that we somehow remembered. But when it comes to saying what was so important in those moments, what made them shape us, it becomes more difficult. Maya Angelou looks at her life precisely through such moments, which she can masterfully sketch and show the reader not only the individual event but also the entire complexity of her experience. This is a book that gains with each reading. This was my second approach to this book, the first in Polish in a great translation. There will surely be more.

4.5 "lyrical, poignant, honest" stars !!!

2018 Honorable Mention Read.

This was a beautifully written start to Ms. Angelou's six-volume autobiography. For many years, I had been eager to read this, and Jean's magnificent review finally convinced me to add it to my shortlist. Ms. Angelou's writing seems effortless and clear. The emotions and honesty shine through, and you accompany her through her childhood, feeling her pain, sharing her laughter, and cheering her on her adventures. I love how she portrays herself with both anger and compassion and speaks frankly about sexual abuse, abandonment, poverty, race relations, jealousy, desire, perseverance, and a deep and uncompromising individuality. I will leave you with one of her painful rants about her race and the races of others: "It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species we were an abomination. All of us."

I look forward to reading the second volume at some point. Rest in peace, Ms. Angelou, and thank you for your contributions to poetry and race relations.

I think this is one of the greatest books ever written, and its perch on the American canon is absolutely well deserved.

“In order to avoid this bitter end, we would all have to be born again, and born with the knowledge of alternatives” - Maya Angelou.

Dr Angelou's Memoir #1 is a masterpiece of coming of age and one of the greatest pieces of non-fiction I've ever read. When I first read it for a graduate school course, I was among white students who didn't care for the book. Some, I suspect, out of jealousy or even racism. I followed suit and said it was good but not excellent. I even thought it was cliched and inferior to the works of Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, whom I adored.

I was a literary snob, often around New Yorkers who dismissed Maya Angelou as a celebrity and a cliched spokeswoman for the black experience. I didn't know then that she was a "sister" to Professor Morrison, who truly loved and treasured her talent and their friendship.

Revisiting this classic memoir brought even more pleasure and chuckles. I'm teaching it again and seeing my students engage with this humorous and harrowing story makes me marvel at how fresh and relevant it remains. Angelou's words, "The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power," resonate deeply.

Dr. Angelou weaves a spell with her accurate setting, vivid imagery, and simple sentences that hide heartache. The characters, like Vivian Baxter, Bailey Johnson, Daddy Bailey, Annie "Momma" Henderson, Willie, and Mrs. Flowers, all shape her love of life and literature.

Maya and Bailey face the heartache of racism, the KKK, and the threat of lynching. She writes bravely about her sexual assault at age 8 and the trauma that followed. Despite this, she writes with forgiveness and candor about her search for love, sex, acceptance, and her conflicted relationships.

For me, it's Mrs. Flowers who shows her the power of books and truly shapes her ethos. Words help Angelou process her hurt and learn to talk again. She didn't stop writing and talking until her death in 2014.

The book ends perfectly, taking us through scenes of small town life, the hustle and bustle of different cities, and her journey of coming of age. It's one of the best coming of age books I've read, showing us what a treasure Maya Angelou was and why she's so inspiring.

The first installment of Angelou's series of autobiographies offers a compelling and powerful account of her growing up and coming of age in America during the 1930s and 1940s. Against this backdrop, themes of racism, violence against women, and the complex issue of identity take center stage. The writing is clear and forceful, leaving no room to hide from the harsh realities described within the pages.

Summarizing the book or outlining its contents would be superfluous; it is a work that demands to be read. Instead, I will offer a few thoughts and reflections. Due to the strong brother/sister relationship depicted, it has been compared to "The Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot. However, I did not see this connection as clearly. The relationship between Maggie and Tom Tulliver is far more fractured and damaged by their upbringing, in a way that Maya and Bailey's was not.

I understand that this book has caused controversy when taught in American schools. While I can see why (though I do not approve), the sexual violence described is indeed powerful. Angelou, however, is something of an iconoclast, taking aim at a number of sacred cows, particularly in relation to religion. Part of her genius lies in the seamless way she combines comedy, painful memories, and tragedy.

When reading this, I was reminded of Hartley's memorable quote: "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." There are times when I think (and hope) this is the case when it comes to racism. I remember my youth and the casual racism that existed, even on TV. Looking at today, I see improvement, but I wonder how much of it is merely on the surface. Perhaps I am a little pessimistic, but I do believe we must treat books like this as living, breathing entities, rather than simply historical documents about a foreign past.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” holds a special place as Maya Angelou’s first book. As I delved into its pages, I was struck by how revolutionary it must have been upon its release. There exists (and still does) a vast number of people with limited understanding of the experiences endured by southern, rural black people before and during the civil rights movement. Although I have read more on this topic than some, I still consider myself among those who can benefit from this portrayal. Seeing that time and place so vividly reflected in the book is undeniably of great value to many, both those who lived through it and those who did not.

In addition, Angelou’s depiction of the events and emotions surrounding her childhood rape is both striking and groundbreaking. It must have been truly astonishing when it first appeared in print. I can also clearly observe how this memoir has influenced subsequent generations of writers and filmmakers. Its importance cannot be overemphasized.

However, as a reading experience, it was a bit more complex for me. Some of the writing was beautiful and vivid, with a strong sense of place and character. But there were also parts that felt a little rough and choppy. The episodic nature of the book, in my opinion, didn’t work as well as it could have. For a first book, these are forgivable flaws. I would never discourage anyone from reading this memoir. In fact, I firmly believe that everyone should read it. What it mainly did for me was ignite my desire to explore Angelou’s later works, where presumably she has fully harnessed the writerly powers that are just beginning to emerge in this book.

Now that I've delved deep into researching, reading, and reviewing a plethora of banned and challenged books, it comes as no surprise to me that writing about sex, especially from a young woman's perspective, has the power to incite fear and suppression.

Maya Angelou's childhood memoir is rife with such content. It commences with her harrowing experience of being raped at the tender age of 9 by her mother's live-in boyfriend. This is followed by her vivid descriptions of her mother's life as a prostitute, her own adventures in Mexico while her father visits a whorehouse, her teenage fears of being a lesbian, and her first self-initiated sexual encounter which leads to her pregnancy at 16.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. She also pokes fun at her grandmother's old-fashioned Arkansas Christianity and morality, glorifies inner-city black lawlessness and crime, lives in a junkyard for a month with other homeless children, and is scornful of white people. Worst of all, from the censors' standpoint, I suspect, is that she refuses to accept her place. She is smart, determined, and has an air of uppityness.

As for Maya Angelou's own writing, I must admit that while she managed to captivate me throughout the first two-thirds of the book, she unfortunately lost me during the last third. I transitioned from being completely absorbed and engaged to simply reading out of academic interest. From the moment she runs away from her father in Los Angeles, the tone of her writing undergoes a significant change. The detailed recollections of her childhood, which were filled with fascinating details, humor, and astute observations of character, suddenly come to a halt. Instead, Maya's memoir becomes compressed, rushed, and vague.

Huge and important events occur afterwards. Her brother runs away from home, she becomes the first black streetcar employee in San Francisco, she decides to prove she is not a "pervert" (in her own words) by asking a neighbor boy to have sex with her, and she becomes pregnant and has a child. However, Maya glosses over all of this in a hurry, almost as if she is writing about someone else. I fail to understand why she abandoned the momentum she had built up during the first two-thirds of her memoir, and this has made me like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings a little less than I initially wanted to.

Nevertheless, it remains an important and ground-breaking book, and there are three very good reasons to read it. Firstly, to tweak the censors' noses. Secondly, to gain an understanding of what it means to be a black girl in America. And thirdly, to hear the voice of a strong black woman who is not Oprah!

My tears were not for Bailey or Mother or even myself but for the helplessness of mortals who live on the sufferance of life. These words are extremely apt and ring so true. People often take their lives for granted, and it is indeed a form of suffering from birth to death. We should be crying for our complete ignorance of the world's reality that we fail to see. But is it all worth it? All those tears?

It can be said that reading this book during these turbulent times is fitting in a certain way. However, some might think one is trying to be part of something they're not. The truth is, as a brown girl in a brown country surrounded by the ocean and other brown countries, I haven't personally faced racism. I was brought up in my own cocoon, being part of the majority on our tiny island, so I haven't received any judgment. But about 2 years ago, I had a different experience. I was in Italy, happily traveling by train from Milan to Switzerland when an Italian boy was curiously looking at me. I thought I was mistaken and ignored it. Later, I noticed he even pointed at me and said something to his mother. I, with no knowledge of the language, just smiled at him. I didn't suspect anything until my aunt came to me, turned me away from them, and took me away, telling me to ignore them. Although she didn't explicitly say what was said between the mother and child, I knew it wasn't good. This was the first time I felt like an alien on another planet, the first time I felt not accepted. Even though it was just a brief moment, I felt a certain level of sadness, not anger but sadness. Not even knowing what they were saying, I felt accused of a crime I couldn't help. Now that I've read this book, I can't even imagine what colored people, whether black, brown, or yellow, feel on a regular basis.

Now that I've called myself brown and used the terms yellow and black for others, what am I really trying to achieve? Am I not putting the same labels that they've forced upon us? Sometimes, looking at the situation in the world, a certain fear runs through my blood. Would we be next? Will there be a day when all colored people are wiped out of the world? The reasons are truly unfathomable to me. So many questions run through my mind when I see the blatant disgust people have towards each other.

Why are we dirty? Black, brown, yellow, why are we so different from them? At the end, aren't we all the same? Strip us down to the bones, won't we all be the same? Aren't we all made of the same tiny atoms? It's not that I'm trying to start an argument by asking these questions, nor am I accusing anyone. But in the end, there's a certain kind of sadness that courses through my blood. No one deserves this. Why is it that even almost a century after what happened in the book, we haven't changed at all?

I'll admit that I'm talking about things in general rather than just the book here, but I don't think there's much more to say about this. Maya Angelou has proven herself worthy of the praise. I'm only sad that I didn't pick up this book earlier. I don't know if it was the captivating words or the lilting prose in the book, but I truly felt as if I was in the embrace of a motherly bosom and listening to a fairytale while reading this. It truly captivated me and sent me to another realm. The story started with a simple yet small girl and ended with that small girl becoming a woman when she wasn't a woman at all. At times, I felt angry at my own ignorance of the world, and at times, I felt angry at the world in general. But I can easily tell that this book was really an eye-opener and it truly did change my world. In the end, I was left not with that anger but a bitter sadness in my heart. Will it ever end?

”All asked the same questions. How long, oh God? How long”

In the rankings of the greatest titles of all time, this one emerges as a formidable contender.

What makes it even more significant, perhaps, is that it is a truly breathtaking memoir. It is unflinchingly honest, and the writing is so beautiful that even when it delves into the ugliness of life, it remains captivating. It is an unyielding read that holds your attention from start to finish.

This is not a hasty opinion, but rather a well-considered recommendation. I wholeheartedly suggest giving this one a try!

In conclusion, it is well worth the decades of anticipation and praise it has received.

Rating: 4.5

In this first installment of her autobiographical series, Maya Angelou beautifully unfolds the narrative of the early years of her life, spanning up to the age of seventeen. This memoir is far from ordinary. It is a deeply poignant and brutally honest account, presented through such enchanting prose that it defies easy categorization.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Bailey Johnson, a naval dietician, and Vivian Baxter Johnson, a nurse, her given name was Marguerite Annie Johnson. However, her older brother, Bailey Jr., affectionately christened her “Maya” in his unique way of addressing her as “my sister.”

Maya Angelou was an incredibly inspiring and courageous woman. Reading her story was at times a source of joy and at others, a cause for heartbreak. What truly struck me was her remarkable resilience, despite the distressing circumstances that forced her to be so strong.

Abandonment seems to shadow both Maya and Bailey, although it is not explicitly detailed. They appear to have become accustomed to it, as if they accept it as their fate. There are other lasting scars as well, such as sexual abuse and the racially divided, impoverished environment in which they live. Nevertheless, she manages to transform the obstacles in her life into a life lived with inner and outer dignity and grace, inspiring countless others along the way.

After the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King in 1968, James Baldwin encouraged Maya Angelou to pen her personal story. With that, she embarked on this first chapter of her life's journey.

I experienced this memoir through both audio and on my Kindle, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes separately. There is something about her voice that is so soothing, making me feel as if her words have touched the very core of my being. It was a truly wonderful way to accompany her on this journey.

Ninety-one years have elapsed since her birth. If she were still alive, she would be celebrating her 91st birthday today. Fortunately, she has left us with her words, which will live on forever. I raise a glass to Ms. Angelou, expressing my gratitude for the gift of herself, her poetry, and her stories that she so generously shared with the world.

May 2014:

I penned this review a year and a half ago. It is penned from the vantage point of a parent who is deeply concerned about what her teenage children read in school. I earnestly hope it might prove useful to other parents, teens, and anyone else who is mindful of content and desires to make well-informed decisions regarding what they read. I received predominantly negative reactions to my review, yet there were also a few positive comments that served as an encouragement to me. After a year of grappling with it all, I desired to be done and move forward, and thus I closed the comment section. If one wishes to peruse through the comments, one will observe a few posts that I wrote in response. My final remarks are in the last two posts. This is my personal response to the book, and I uphold your right to make your own choices about what you read as well.

I read this book because my teenage son was slated to be required to read it in his English class at school. I was disinclined to read the book as I was cognizant of its content. But I felt it imperative in order to be able to engage in a conversation with the teacher about my objections. So, I did not have an affinity for this book. My degree in Comparative Literature empowers me to discern some literary value in Caged Bird, as well as historical and social value. I am of the belief that Maya Angelou is a talented writer. I hold in high regard some of her poetry. However, her series of autobiographical books encompasses an excessive amount of explicit and perturbing sexual content for my liking. And I most certainly did not want my 15-year-old son to have to read it! He was averse to reading it, and my husband and I wholeheartedly supported his choice.

The most graphically and disturbingly sexual material in Caged Bird pertains to the rape of the author when she was an eight-year-old girl. This harrowing experience profoundly impacts her life. But I am of the opinion that our teenage children can fathom that such abhorrent things occur, without having to be dragged through the mire of the sordid details. Ms. Angelou writes with vividness. My son does not wish to have those images implanted in his mind, and I fully back him. I can envision this book being taught at the college level, but I firmly believe that it is not befitting for high school required reading. In my son's advanced English class, this book was one of six main texts. In the regular English class, there are only two main texts, and this is one of them. How lamentable, when there are so many other outstanding literary works to select from that are devoid of such content.

My son's teacher was amicable and professional about the matter. Another English teacher was not as agreeable. She feigned surprise that I would categorize the book as "R-rated." She averred that we could witness worse things on prime-time TV. Our (my husband's and my) retort was "That's precisely why we choose not to watch those TV shows!" It irked me that she would attempt to employ the "everybody's doing it" excuse. Just because our society's standards of decency continue to nosedive, is no justification to embrace them! It is an American Lit class, so I proffered a couple of other texts as alternatives if the intention was to address the African American experience. But this book is evidently one of that teacher's favorites, so she defended it. The teachers did state that our son could opt to read a different book. However, because the class structure was centered around discussion, we and our son elected to have him read an 'edited version' of Caged Bird instead. I simply apprised him which chapters to skip. And I am glad that our son fortuitously had the more empathetic teacher.

So, I am now done with my diatribe. I simply needed to get that off my chest. I am glad that I have a penchant for reading so that I can be vigilant about what my children are exposed to at school. I am cognizant of other parents who would also object to this book if they were more cognizant of the content. And I understand that it can be arduous to keep pace with our kids at times. I anticipate that we will encounter this problem again at the high school. But on the brighter side, I also get to relish discussing good books with my children!