Items related to A Song Flung Up to Heaven
The culmination of a unique achievement in modern American literature: the six volumes of autobiography that began more than thirty years ago with the appearance of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother. No sooner does she arrive there than she learns that Malcolm X has been assassinated.
Devastated, she tries to put her life back together, working on the stage in local theaters and even conducting a door-to-door survey in Watts. Then Watts explodes in violence, a riot she describes firsthand.
Subsequently, on a trip to New York, she meets Martin Luther King, Jr., who asks her to become his coordinator in the North, and she visits black churches all over America to help support King’s Poor People’s March.
But once again tragedy strikes. King is assassinated, and this time Angelou completely withdraws from the world, unable to deal with this horrible event. Finally, James Baldwin forces her out of isolation and insists that she accompany him to a dinner party—where the idea for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is born. In fact, A Song Flung Up to Heaven ends as Maya Angelou begins to write the first sentences of Caged Bird.
A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother. No sooner does she arrive there than she learns that Malcolm X has been assassinated.
Devastated, she tries to put her life back together, working on the stage in local theaters and even conducting a door-to-door survey in Watts. Then Watts explodes in violence, a riot she describes firsthand.
Subsequently, on a trip to New York, she meets Martin Luther King, Jr., who asks her to become his coordinator in the North, and she visits black churches all over America to help support King’s Poor People’s March.
But once again tragedy strikes. King is assassinated, and this time Angelou completely withdraws from the world, unable to deal with this horrible event. Finally, James Baldwin forces her out of isolation and insists that she accompany him to a dinner party—where the idea for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is born. In fact, A Song Flung Up to Heaven ends as Maya Angelou begins to write the first sentences of Caged Bird.
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Review:
It's been a long time coming, but A Song Flung Up to Heaven triumphantly completes the six volumes of autobiography that began nearly 30 years ago with Maya Angelou's astonishingly successful I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a work that changed readers' perceptions of what autobiographical writing could achieve. The impact of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (which evoked the author's adolescence and sexual abuse in Arkansas) was unprecedented. It combined frankness and emotional force with a nuanced, poetic style--a style that Angelou has perhaps found more elusive recently. But it's here again, as affecting as ever. The book deals with the years 1964-68, a turbulent period in which Angelou came back to America after her African sojourn. This, of course, was the time of the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King; Angelou was on the point of working with the latter in the civil rights movement. Her voice is fresh and exhilarating as she deals with the tragedies and triumphs of a packed life, and there are some set-piece moments, such as her account of the misguided revenge she took on an ex-lover.
From the Back Cover:
Many women have become celebrated as writers and poets, but Angelou has also enjoyed a distinguished career as a civil rights activist, producer, performer, actress, and filmmaker. With all of this under her belt, she can be forgiven for the note of self-congratulation that creeps in at times. But for those who've followed her unique writing, this is a journey into a fascinating life and a riveting picture of a divided America, always informed with that clear-sighted vision Angelou is famous for. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk
Praise for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“I know that not since the days of my childhood, when people in
books were more real than the people one saw every day,
have I found myself so moved.”
—James Baldwin
Gather Together in My Name
“Gather Together in My Name is part of a select body of literature that includes The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Claude Brown’s
Manchild in the Promised Land and Ernest J. Gaines’
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Maya Angelou
regards the world and herself with intelligence and wit; she records the events of her life with style and grace.”
—William McPherson, The Washington Post Book World
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
“This is a superb account by a great woman who has embraced a
difficult destiny with rare intelligence and
infectious joie de vivre.”
— The Boston Globe
“I know that not since the days of my childhood, when people in
books were more real than the people one saw every day,
have I found myself so moved.”
—James Baldwin
Gather Together in My Name
“Gather Together in My Name is part of a select body of literature that includes The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Claude Brown’s
Manchild in the Promised Land and Ernest J. Gaines’
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Maya Angelou
regards the world and herself with intelligence and wit; she records the events of her life with style and grace.”
—William McPherson, The Washington Post Book World
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
“This is a superb account by a great woman who has embraced a
difficult destiny with rare intelligence and
infectious joie de vivre.”
— The Boston Globe
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherVirago Press Ltd
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 1860499368
- ISBN 13 9781860499364
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages176
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. It is 1964 and Maya Angelou is on her way back home, leaving behind her beloved - and now seriously teenaged - son Guy, to finish university in Ghana. America is pulsing with the challenge of change, the civil rights movement is in full swing and that's where Maya Angelou wants to be, working alongside her friends Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. In this final volume, Maya Angelou provides, with her customary wisdom, compassion and wit, a first-hand record of an extraordinarily exciting and tragic political period. She writes too of "Jimmy" Baldwin, Eldridge Cleaver, and of friends and family, and finishes with the beginnings of her career as one of America's most impressive memoir writers. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine. Seller Inventory # GOR003195776
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9781860499364
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