
Maya Angelou's seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents & resilience of this extraordinary writer Loving the world she also knows its cruelty As a Black woman she has known discrimination & extreme poverty but also hope joyachievement & celebration In this first volume of her six books of autobiography Maya Angelou 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 & suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover