Maya Angelou (Revised and Updated Edition)

Linda Wagner-Martin is Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She was the 2011 recipient of the Hubbell Medal for lifetime service in American literature (sponsored by the MLA), and has published more than fifty-five books of criticism, some edited, including Sylvia Plath: A Biography (1987) and “Favored Strangers”: Gertrude Stein and Her Family (1995), as well as studies of Ernest Hemingway, Zelda Fitzgerald, Barbara Kingsolver, and others.

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface1. Marguerite Annie Johnson, April 4, 19282. Ambivalence Is Not So Easy3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings4. Gather Together in My Name5. Music, Poetry, and Being Alive6. Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas7. The Heart of a Woman8. Africa9. A Song Flung Up to Heaven 10. Poems and the Public Spotlight11. From Autobiography to the Essay12. Maya Angelou as Spirit Leader13. “Given to Grace Notes”: Words as Music in Maya Angelou’s Writing14. The Last YearsBibliographyIndex

This book offers an accessible, clear biography of the highly acclaimed poet, essayist, memoirist, educator, and civil rights activist. Refreshingly unburdened by footnotes and theoretical digressions, the book applies a wide-angle lens to Angelou’s life and provides a sweeping view of the woman and her works. The approach is nonetheless scholarly: Wagner-Martin (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) frames her discussion of Angelou’s life with other critics’ viewpoints and emphasizes Angelou’s influence on the larger literary world. The book is as much a biography of Angelou’s writings as it is a biography of the woman. Wagner-Martin smartly anchors her study in Angelou’s six autobiographies, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings—thus highlighting for readers her subject's growth as an author. Wagner-Martin even posits that Angelou’s poetry gives insight into her love life. She also provides an analysis of some of Angelou’s essays and her important work as a civil rights activist. The book includes a useful bibliography of primary sources —poems, autobiographies, essays, spoken-word albums, children’s books, screenplays, and so on—as well as a comprehensive bibliography of secondary sources. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.