I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the young and early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou, the first in a seven-volume series and a coming-of-age story illustrating how strength of character and a love of literature helped her overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother, and ends when Maya becomes a mother at sixteen, tracing her transformation from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice. Angelou was challenged by her friend, author James Baldwin, and her editor Robert Loomis to write an autobiography that was also a piece of literature, and reviewers often categorize the book as autobiographical fiction even though the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography.