Overview: Editorial Review

James Baldwin writes: "This testimony from a Black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts and lives of all Black men and women...I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a Biblical study of life in the midst of death."