Published 1969 / Length 281 pages
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first volume in Maya Angelou’s acclaimed series of autobiographies. Born Marguerite Johnson, she and her beloved brother, Bailey, are sent to live with their strict Southern Baptist grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The children call her Momma and her rules and religion bring an order to their young lives that their parents did not. Running the local store, Momma is in an unusual position during the troubled times in 1930s America, and she is able to protect her grandchildren from the harsher aspects of life during the Depression. The realities of growing up in the Southern states are painfully and truthfully depicted, but it is when the children are sent north to escape the potentially brutal attitudes of the white folks on the other side of town that Maya’s life is turned upside down. Angelou’s poetic writing style gives real depth to her descriptions of her formative years. She allows the reader genuine emotional access to the difficult and personal experiences of her childhood and adolescence, with moving and lyrical prose that manages to avoid self-pity, in a narrative that finishes on a note of hope.
‘In her beautiful and honest account, Angelou confronts us with themes as huge and global as racial discrimination and as small and localized as a young girl’s coming of age, each explored with equal poignancy and candour. An inspiring read.’ – ANNA, 20
• Maya spends much of her childhood with her grandmother in Arkansas – how does her strict upbringing contribute to her behaviour as she grows up?
• Following Maya’s treatment at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, the family takes drastic action. How do you think young Maya’s guilt over their protection of her affects her developing personality?
• How does her month of homelessness change Maya’s outlook when she returns to her mother’s home?
• Maya was almost completely mute for five years, yet she went on to become an eloquent speaker, civil-rights activist, poet, actress, dancer, playwright and university professor. Do you think her years of silence helped or hindered her transformation into the woman she became?
• The book’s title comes from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem ‘Sympathy’.
• The Color Purple by ALICE WALKER (see here) – a woman finds the strength to overcome a horrendous childhood with the companionship of other women.
• Beloved by TONI MORRISON (see here) – a Pulitzer Prize-winning depiction of life at the end of slavery, and the extremes of motherly love.
• Purple Hibiscus by CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE – examines the restrictions of a strict religious upbringing in a country undergoing dramatic political change.