I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Angelou did not speak for five years after a trauma in childhood. Then she found her voice. The world is still reverberating from it.
Maya's Voices
Maya Angelou's 1969 memoir follows her life from age three, when she and her brother were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, through displacement, racial violence, and a devastating assault that left her mute for five years, to the gradual rediscovery of her voice through books, poetry, and the guidance of a remarkable teacher named Mrs. Flowers. Written in lyrical prose that makes every memory feel both intimate and universal, the memoir became an instant classic. It was the first nonfiction bestseller by a Black American woman.
Reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Voice
/
Chapter
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
"Maya Angelou
Angelou wrote the memoir after Robert Loomis, her editor at Random House, challenged her to write one. She said she had no interest in memoir. He told her it was very hard to write autobiography as literature, which he knew was the only challenge that would make her do it.
The memoir was nominated for the National Book Award in 1970 and has never gone out of print. It was on the American Library Association's list of most frequently challenged books for decades due to its frank treatment of racism, abuse, and sexuality.