I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou's 1969 memoir of childhood in the American South — covering racism, sexual abuse, and self-discovery — the first widely published memoir by an African-American woman and the model for the modern American memoir dealing with race.

Creates the modern African-American memoir — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first widely published memoir by an African-American woman that treats both race and personal trauma with literary ambition; its combination of lyrical prose, unflinching account of abuse and racism, and triumphant survivor narrative established the memoir form for subsequent American writers.