Maya Angelou‎'‎s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer‎.‎ Loving the world‎,‎ she also knows its cruelty‎.‎ As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty‎,‎ but also hope‎,‎ joy‎,‎ achievement and celebration‎.‎ In this first volume of her six books of autobiography‎,‎ Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s‎.‎ She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother‎'‎s lover‎.‎ ‎'‎I write about being a Black American woman‎,‎ however‎,‎ I am always talking about what it‎'‎s like to be a human being‎.‎ This is how we are‎,‎ what makes us laugh‎,‎ and this is how we fall and how we somehow‎,‎ amazingly‎,‎ stand up again‎'‎ Maya Angelou