Maya Angelou's six volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and
resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its
cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but
also hope, joy, achievement and 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 and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by
her mother's lover. 'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am
always