The Maya Angelou Autobiographies: Six BBC Radio 4 dramatisations

Written by Maya Angelou

Narrated by Indie Gjesdal, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Full Cast and Adjoa Andoh

Six BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Maya Angelou's evocative, extraordinary memoirs, starring Adjoa Andoh and Pippa Bennett-Warner

The books that make up the life and times of Maya Angelou are among the most beautiful and haunting pieces of autobiography ever written. Joyous, direct and searingly honest, they run the gamut from life-affirming to tragic, and back again.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings charts Maya’s childhood in the Deep South in the 1930s; while Gather Together In My Name recounts her descent into prostitution and narcotics. Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas sees her forging a career in showbusiness, and in The Heart of a Woman, she moves to New York and becomes involved in civil rights. All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes explores her time in Ghana during the 1960s, and in A Song Flung up to Heaven, she returns to America to work with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. When tragedy strikes, her friend James Baldwin helps her out of her devastation – and new opportunities beckon for Maya.

Angelou’s memoirs have become modern classics, beloved worldwide, and these stunning dramatisations illuminate her incredible resilience, creativity and power, painting an extraordinary portrait of 20th century black America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BBC Digital Audio
• Release date: May 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781787532021

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was one of the world's most important writers and activists. Born 4 April 1928, she lived and chronicled an extraordinary life: rising from poverty, violence and racism, she became a renowned author, memoirist, poet, playwright, civil rights' activist - working with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. She wrote and performed a poem, 'On the Pulse of Morning', for President Clinton on his inauguration. She was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and was honoured by more than seventy universities throughout the world. She first thrilled the world with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). This was followed by six volumes of autobiography, the seventh and final volume, Mom & Me & Mom, published in 2013. She wrote three collections of essays; many volumes of poetry, including His Day is Done, a tribute to Nelson Mandela; and two cookbooks. She had a lifetime appointment as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University of North Carolina. She died in 2014.