I Know Why the Caged Chicken Sings

Here’s a guide as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself.
I Know Why the Caged Chicken Sings captures the longing of lonely kids, the brute insult of bigotry, and the surprise of phrases that may make the world proper. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a contemporary American traditional beloved worldwide.

 

Despatched by their mom to dwell with their religious, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern city, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the bias of the native “powhitetrash.” At eight years outdated and again at her mom’s aspect in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a person many occasions her age—and has to dwell with the implications for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her personal sturdy spirit, and the concepts of nice authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will permit her to be free as a substitute of imprisoned.

 

Poetic and highly effective,
I Know Why the Caged Chicken Sings will contact hearts and alter minds for so long as folks learn.


 


“I Know Why the Caged Chicken Sings liberates the reader into life just because Maya Angelou confronts her personal life with such a transferring surprise, such a luminous dignity.”—James Baldwin