Product Description

Beautifully designed and featuring over 150 sepia portraits, family photographs, and letters from the life of one of the world’s most beloved and admired artists, this moving biography will appeal to all fans of the poet laureate, phenomenal bestselling author, and scribe for the people, Dr. Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou’s memoirs, essay and poetry collections, and cookbooks have sold millions of copies. Now, MAYA ANGELOU: A GLORIOUS CELEBRATION offers an unusual and irresistible look at her life and her myriad interests and accomplishments. Created by the people who know her best—her longtime friends Marcia Ann Gillespie and Richard Long, and her niece Rosa Johnson Butler—it is part tribute, part scrapbook, capturing Angelou at home, at work, and in the public eye. Readers who have come to know and love Maya Angelou will be surprised and delighted by this personal, illustrated portrait of the renowned poet, author, playwright, and humanitarian.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372504 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Released on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
From the publication of her celebrated memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, to her reading of her poem On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton's first presidential inauguration, Maya Angelou (née Marguerite Johnson) has been an inspirational figure. In celebration of her 80th birthday (April 4, 2008), her friends Gillespie and Long, and her niece Butler, honor her life and accomplishments with a biographical tribute chock-full of photographs and snippets of Angelou's own writings. The authors trace her life from the self-imposed silence after her rape at eight through her voracious reading and the stream of words that began when she was 14 at the coaxing of an adult friend. After marrying Tosh Angelos, and bearing her son, Clyde, she ventured successfully into acting (when she changed her name to Maya Angelou) and activism alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, but always harbored the desire to write. As this book makes abundantly clear, Angelou's friends view her as a woman whose arms and home are always open and a loyal friend who respects others and loves good food and roaring laughter. (Apr.)
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—This beautiful biography celebrates the life of the distinguished author, poet laureate, playwright, and civil rights activist. It includes her letters, notes, and writings, and more than 100 photographs of family and friends. Gillespie and Long, two of Angelou's close friends, and Johnson Butler, her niece, examine the 80-year-old Angelou's life from her rape at age eight, through her flourishing career in the United States, Egypt, and England, to the delivery of her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993. This must-have, close-up account is a refreshing reminder that one can overcome adversity, succeed in life, and give back to community and friends.—Gregory Lum, Jesuit High School, Portland, OR
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Angelou is a woman who has long used the complexities of her life as a means of understanding the human condition. Traumatized by rape at eight years old, she didn’t speak for six years, learning to listen intently and value the importance of words and speech. That experience and her survival skills served her throughout her life, from teenage motherhood through careers as a dancer, cabaret performer, actress, poet, screenwriter, journalist, activist, and scholar. As she moved from the segregated South to California, Harlem, Europe, and Africa, every step of the way Angelou nurtured her love of words and self-expression, her passion for social justice. Gillespie, an old friend, and Rosa Johnson Butler, a relative, recall the rigors of motherhood, failed marriages and relationships, career turbulence, and friendships with James Baldwin, John Killens, Rosa Guy, Malcolm X, Oprah Winfrey, and other luminaries. Short excerpts from interviews with Angelou over the years, as well as Angelou’s own works and recollections, are all tied together with a narrative of her life. Photos, including pictures of her handwritten notes, add intimacy to this portrait of a towering intellectual, writer, and activist, now in her eighth decade. This is a loving tribute to a joyous life well lived. --Vanessa Bush

Customer Reviews

Maya Angelou A Glorious Celebration
The latest testimony to the life of a gifted writer. Includes many historic pictures.

Loved it
The book made for a very quick read and was packed full of stories about Maya's life. Wow! Who knew of all her travels, the significant people in her life and how much she taught others in ways outside of her writing. Loved the book.

a special book
a beautiful story about a beautiful lady. book allows the reader to engage culturally and spiritually with one of the most outstanding persons of our time.