Conversations with Maya Angelou

by Jeffrey M. Elliot (Editor), Maya Angelou

From Maya Angelou:

I decided many years ago to invent myself. I had obviously been invented by someone else–by a whole society– and I did't like their invention.

All those years in that little town in Arkansas, I learned through the literature. So much that when I later grew to be six feet tall, and at sixteen had a child and was unmarried, years later I decided that this is my world. My grandparents' and great grandparents' and great, great, great grandparents' blood and sweat enriched this soil. So this is my country.

The black writer in particular should throw out all of that propaganda and pressure, disbelieve everything one is told to believe and believe everything one is told not to believe. Start with a completely clean slate and decide, "I will put it out."

To begin with, if you're black and every model of beauty is either white or dark-skinned black, then it has to create some insecurity in a person like me, who couldn't conform. But I was blessed with the advantage of anger. It was a kind of hauteur. I could withdraw from such plebeian company and stand tall and sneer.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Poetry, Philosophy, Feminism

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Rebecca]

How can you go wrong with Maya Angelou? Oh, right, you can't.

[Sean Harding]

Basically a collection of magazine/newspaper articles and interviews where they have spoken with Maya Angelou and got her thoughts, mainly on her life and her work.
She is an engaging subject evening written form.

[neenur]

I found it really interesting how as you go further you could see Maya kind of become more reserved with her speech. Also I found it weird how most write ups speak of her rape, I would think there’s more defining things in her life. It was nice but obviously the questions became repetitive afterwards.

[Mackenzie Calhoun]

The baddest to ever do it. The interviewing style changed so much from the 70s to the 80s, and was really interesting to see how Miss Angelou dealt with different tactics. Learned soooooo much about her and about a whole mess of other stuff. Good read.