Maya Angelou ( /ˈmaɪ.ə ˈændʒəloʊ/; born Marguerite Ann Johnson; April 4, 1928) is an American author and poet. She has published six autobiographies, five books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. She has received dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
Angelou's list of occupations includes pimp, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, castmember of the musical Porgy and Bess, coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, author, journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization, and actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1991, she has taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she holds the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she has made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.
With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou was one of the first African American women who was able to publicly discuss her personal life. She is respected as a spokesperson of Black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of Black culture. Although attempts have been made to ban her books from some US libraries, her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide. Angelou's major works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics have characterized them as autobiographies. She has made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes such as racism, identity, family, and travel. Angelou is best known for her autobiographies, but she is also an established poet, although her poems have received mixed reviews.
Read more about Maya Angelou: Works, Style and Genre in Autobiographies, Poetry
Other articles related to "maya angelou, angelou":
... The works of Maya Angelou encompass autobiography, plays, poetry, and teleplays ... Maya Angelou Angelou's autobiographies are distinct in style and narration, and "stretch over time and place", from Arkansas to Africa and back to the US ... Angelou has written collections of essays, including Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993) and Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997), which writer Hilton Als called her "wisdom books" and "homilies ...
1968 Florida Scott-Maxwell The Measure of My Days 1968 Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 1969 Brian Aherne A Proper Job 1969 Pat Boone A New Song 1970 Pablo Casals Joys and. 2001 Paula Fox Borrowed Finery 2001 Maya Angelou The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou 1969-2002 J ...
... American poet, author, and actress, Maya Angelou recited her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993, the first poet to do so since Robert Frost ... In January 2008, Angelou announced that she wrote a poem for Hillary entitled State Package for Hillary Clinton for The Observer ... On the subject of writing the poem, The Guardian stated that, "Angelou is steadfast in her loyalty to Clinton ...
... Although Angelou considered herself a playwright and poet when her editor Robert Loomis challenged her to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she is best known for her ... According to Lupton, many of Angelou's readers identify her as a poet first and an autobiographer second ... Washington has called her "the black woman's poet laureate", and has called Angelou's poetry the anthems of African Americans ...
Famous quotes by maya angelou:
“A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning’s greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications.... Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, ‘I’m going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that’s tough. I am going to snow anyway.’”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)