REVIEW: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

Book: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Author: Maya Angelou

Premise: As a Black woman, Maya Angelou has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In the first of her seven volumes of autobiography, Maya 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.

[⚠️TW: rape, racism] 

Despite being an autobiography, this book reads like fiction and at times I had to remind myself that this was actually what happened to Maya Angelou. There was love and joy in parts and darkness in others. The retelling of her rape I found especially upsetting. I raged at the injustices against black people that she both faced and witnessed.

An inspiring woman and an important read.