'There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you' In this first volume of
her seven books of autobiography Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her
grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. Loving the world she also knows its cruelty.
As a Black woman she has known discrimination violence and extreme poverty but also hope joy
achievement and celebration. 'Liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou
confronts her life with such a moving wonder such a luminous dignity' JAMES BALDWIN 'She
moved through the world with unshakeable calm confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will
always be the rainbow in my clouds' OPRAH WINFREY 'The poems and stories she wrote . . . were
gifts of wisdom and wit courage and grace' BILL CLINTON
