Letter to My Daughter (2009) is African American writer and poet Maya Angelou's third book of essays.
 Front cover | |
| Author | Maya Angelou |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Essays |
| Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 2009 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 166 |
| ISBN | 978-0-8129-8003-5 |
| Preceded by | Even the Stars Look Lonesome |
Background
Letter to My Daughter is Maya Angelou's third book of essays.[note 1] She had published several volumes of poetry, including Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.[2] She had recited her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning", at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993,[3] making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961.[4] In 2009, when Letter was published, Angelou had published six out of her seven installments of her series of autobiographies. Her sixth autobiography, A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002), was considered her final autobiography[5] until she published her seventh autobiography, Mom & Me & Mom, in 2013, at the age of 85.[6]
I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters. You are Black and White, Jewish and Muslim, Asian, Spanish-speaking, Native American and Aleut. You are fat and think and pretty and pain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered, and I am speaking to you.
Angelou in the preface of Letter to My Daughter[7]
By the time Letter was published, Angelou had become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women.[8] She was, as scholar Joanne Braxton has stated, "without a doubt ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer".[9] She had also become, as reviewer Richard Long stated, "a major autobiographical voice of the time".[10] Angelou was one of the first African American female writers to publicly discuss her personal life, and one of the first to use herself as a central character in her books. Writer Julian Mayfield, who called her first autobiography. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, "a work of art that eludes description", stated that Angelou's series set a precedent not only for other Black women writers, but for the genre of autobiography as a whole.[1]
References
Explanatory notes
- ^ Writer Hilton Als called Angelou's first two books of essays, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993) and Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997) her "wisdom books" and "homilies strung together with autobiographical texts".[1]
Citations
- ^ a b Als, Hilton (5 August 2002). "Songbird: Maya Angelou Takes Another Look at Herself". The New Yorker. Retrieved 27 December 2013
- ^ Moyer, Homer E. (2003). The R.A.T. Real-World Aptitude Test: Preparing Yourself for Leaving Home. Sterling, Virginia: Capital Books. p. 297. ISBN 1-931868-42-5
- ^ Grenier, Richard (29 November 1993). "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (Book)". National Review 45 (23): 76
- ^ Manegold, Catherine S. (20 January 1993 ). "An Afternoon with Maya Angelou; A Wordsmith at Her Inaugural Anvil". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 December 2013
- ^ Connolly, Sherryl (14 April 2002). "Angelou Puts Finishing Touches on the Last of Many Memoirs". New York Daily News. Retrieved 27 December 2013
- ^ Gilmor, Susan (7 April 2013). "Angelou: Writing about Mom emotional process". Winston-Salem Journal. Retrieved 27 December 2013
- ^ Angelou, p. xii
- ^ "Maya Angelou". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 27 December 2013
- ^ Braxton, Joanne M. (1999). "Symbolic Geography and Psychic Landscapes: A Conversation with Maya Angelou". In Joanne M. Braxton. Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Casebook. New York: Oxford Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-19-511606-2
- ^ Long, Richard (November 2005). "Maya Angelou". Smithsonian 36 (8): 84