I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – review

The first volume of Maya Angelou's autobiography is proof of her inner strength and a testament to the power of words

Anita Sethi
Sunday 18 August 2013 00.03 BST

he caged bird "sings of freedom", writes Maya Angelou in her poem "Caged Bird" – a poignant recurring image throughout her work, as she eloquently explores the struggle to become liberated from the shackles of racism and misogyny. This evocative first volume of her six books of autobiography, originally published in 1969 (1984 in the UK), vividly depicts Angelou's "tender years" from the ages of three to 16, partly in the American south during the depression-wracked 1930s, while also offering timeless insights into the empowering quality of books.

The painful sense of being unwanted haunts her early childhood, for when Maya (then known as Marguerite) is three and her brother Bailey four they are sent to the "musty little town" of segregated Stamps, Arkansas wearing tags on their wrists addressed to "To whom it may concern", dispatched by their parents in California who had decided to end their "calamitous marriage". Living with their grandmother, "Momma", who owns a general merchandise store, and Uncle Willie, they suffer racist incidents both in the store and on the streets – nowhere feels safe. Sent to live with her mother, Maya endures the trauma of rape by her mother's lover Mr Freeman ("a breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart"). After Freeman is murdered, she stops speaking, frightened of words.

Angelou finds her voice and a love of language and books through the help of Mrs Bertha Flowers who, writes Angelou, "has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be". The memoir's absorbing emotional arc traces Angelou's growth from inferiority complex to confidence, finding the strength to tackle "the puzzle of inequality and hate" and be hired as the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco thanks to her "honeycomb of determination".

Challenging societal structures, Angelou also succeeds in altering literary structures, experimenting with the capabilities of memoir – indeed, her editor had dared her to "write an autobiography as literature". Told with a winning combination of wit and wisdom, this is a paean to the powers of storytelling to build bridges across divides, and heal what has been damaged.

THE GUARDIAN