I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) was born Marguerite Johnson in St Louis, Missouri. She had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first female Black director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright and poet. As a civil rights activist, Angelou worked for Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. She was also an educator and served as the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University as well as on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 2000, Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton, and in 2010, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the US, by President Barack Obama. She is best known for her seven autobiographical books: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), which was nominated for the National Book Award; Gather Together in My Name (1974); Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (1976); The Heart of a Woman (1981); All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986); A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002); and Mom & Me & Mom (2013). Among her volumes of poetry are A Brave and Startling Truth (1995); I Shall Not Be Moved (1990); Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (1983); And Still I Rise (1978); and Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie (1971), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Tayari Jones is the author of four novels: Leaving Atlanta (2002), The Untelling (2005), Silver Sparrow (2011) and An American Marriage (2018), which won the Aspen Words Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his end-of-year roundup. Born in Atlanta, Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. The recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship and a Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship, she is also a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Jones is currently professor of Creative Writing at Emory University and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.