Flowers challenged her by saying, ‘You do not love poetry, not until you speak it.’ 2.

Bertha Flowers, for helping her to speak again. She refused to speak for the next year – a condition called selective mutism – during which time she developed her listening, observing and memorising skills, as well as a love of literature. Four days after he was released, he was murdered, likely by one of Angelou’s family members.Īngelou blamed herself for his death, believing that in speaking his name, her voice had killed someone. Though he was convicted, he only spent one day in prison. She told her brother about the incident, and later testified against her attacker in court. However, aged just eight, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. She was mute for five yearsįrom being the product of a ‘calamitous marriage’ to being sent away to live with her grandmother, Angelou had a difficult childhood. Here are 10 facts about Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life. However, in spite of her struggles, her brilliant and illuminating writing has marked her as a historically significant figure for her role as a civil rights leader who fought for social and racial justice. For instance, the consequences of a sexual assault at a young age left her mute for five years, and the assassination of her friends Malcolm X and then Martin Luther King Jr. However, much of Angelou’s work was informed by difficult events in her life. Her subsequent work until her death in 2014 focused on themes such as racism, identity, family and travel, and her legacy continues to leave a cultural imprint upon the world. The author of seven autobiographies, three books of essays and several books of poetry, her first autobiography and arguably most famous work, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (1969) propelled her to lasting international fame. Maya Angelou’s reputation as one of the world’s most famous and prolific writers needs little introduction.

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