James Baldwin -Angelou’s mentor- writes: “This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women. . . .
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved. . . . Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death”
“Simultaneously touching and comic.”—The New York Times