![]() ![]() ![]() That’s not to say that Angelou’s childhood is idyllic – far from it – but the setbacks and confrontations she contends with are relayed through a child’s forgiving eyes. It’s hard to think of a more successful evocation of that period of innocence than ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. Few writers have the ability to faithfully recreate their childhoods on the page without it sounding sentimental or exaggerated. The broad thrust of the narrative follows Marguerite (‘Maya’, we learn, is a nickname) and her older brother Bailey as they are abandoned as children to be brought up by ‘Momma’, their maternal grandmother, in the small town of Stamps in Arkansas. The current climate of racial tensions in America adds to the poignancy and timelessness of Angelou’s work, and there’s no way of reading it without seeing the events through a prism of twenty first century concerns. Not only is it beautifully written, but it also recounts a period of American history, specifically the early 1930s to early 1950s, and pinpoints it in the American south, where the bulk of the action takes place, with extraordinary clarity and detail. The first volume of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies, first published in 1969, is undoubtedly a literary achievement of considerable merit. The weight of expectation and significance attached to it can be a distraction – the best thing is to get on and read it. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is often hailed as one of the most important and influential books of the twentieth century. ![]()
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