Time to learn something: Happy birthday, Maya Angelou.

0
184

Maya Angelou was born 89 years ago today. Her obituary from the print edition of The Economist (June 7, 2014) is more than a death notice. It’s an artistic rendering in itself, something for which the publication is renowned.

To this very day, when I receive my weekly copy, I turn first to the obituary.

Of course, there is more at Maya Angelou’s web site. As The Economist observes, “it’s hard to overstate her place in American culture life.”

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou, née Marguerite Johnson, writer, dancer, singer and civil-rights activist, died on May 28th, aged 86

WHEN she was eight, Maya Angelou stopped speaking. That was the year her mother’s boyfriend raped her. But worse than that, worse than the terrible pain in her stomach, worse than the blood or the feeling that her thin hips were coming out of their sockets, was the knowledge that her voice had killed him. After she cried out against him in court, he was found kicked to death. She did not speak again, except to her brother, for five years …

LEAVE A REPLY