书名：I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱 
作者：Maya Angelou
出版社名称：Ballantine Books
出版时间：2009
语种：英文
ISBN：9780345514400
商品尺寸：10.6 x 2.1 x 17.4 cm
包装：简装
页数：304
“笼中来回徘徊的鸟无法看穿愤怒的栅栏/它的翅膀已折，脚被拴死/它只有放开喉咙大声歌唱。”

挣脱种族与性别的双重樊笼，玛雅·安吉罗，这位勇敢的亚马孙式女战士唱出了她在绝境中奋起抗争的歌。本书I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings《我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱》是玛雅·安吉罗著名的自传体小说。

小说的故事从“我”四岁时与哥哥一起，被离异的父母像寄包裹一样寄往南方的祖母家开始，写到八岁时“我”被母亲的男友奸污，一直到十六岁时怀上了另一个男人的孩子，当上了未婚妈妈为止。这是一部典型的黑人女性成长小说，具备“发现”（未知）与“确认”（已知）的一切必要元素。作者诗意的笔触与高扬的激情汪洋瓷肆，流贯全书。

听一听这只强健的、黑羽毛的希望之鸟的歌吟！

媒体评论：
早在童年的时候，我就明白，书中的人物比我们每天遇见的人更真实。这是本书深深打动我的原因。——詹姆斯·鲍德温（James Baldwin）

如果说本书是语言的鬼斧神工，或是苦难童年的泣血哀歌……那都是不公平的，你只有逐字逐句读下去，才能体会到蕴含其中的敏感与生命力。——《新闻周刊》（Newsweek）

一部优美的作品，一部引人入胜的回忆录。玛雅是天才的作家，对生命有着非比寻常的感悟，所以才有了如此杰出的自传故事。——《科克斯评论》（Kirkus Reviews）

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother's side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age--and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

Review
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity."--James Baldwin
在小镇成长起来的人们离开了故土、苍老了容颜，甚至连谋生手段、进取之心和生存目标都不再与从前相同，但不管他们戴着怎样的面具，那后面依旧是一张孩子的脸。

玛雅·安吉洛在《我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱》中回忆了二十世纪三四十年代在南方小镇斯坦普斯及加利福尼亚州的成长经历。从三岁到十七岁，玛雅不仅要与那如影相随的错位和不安全感做斗争，还要面对种族主义、性骚扰和强奸等一系列令人心碎的挑战，这种遭遇影响了她的一生。后来她意识到，爱自己、善待他人、变得坚强、阅读伟大的作品是打开心灵桎梏的钥匙，会给人自由。《我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱》，诗意却富有力量、足以触动心灵并改变人们的思维方式。它让人愉悦而又痛苦，它神秘而又令人难忘，一如童年本身。
玛雅·安吉洛，美国诗人、作家、教师、舞蹈家和导演。生于1928年4月4日，在南方小镇阿肯色州的斯坦普斯度过童年，后移居旧金山。玛雅经历传奇，曾从事多种职业，为反抗种族歧视，她成为旧金山的黑人电车售票员，并投身马丁·路德·金领导的民权事业。1993年，应邀在克林顿的总统就职典礼上朗诵诗歌《清晨的脉搏》。现为维克森林大学雷诺兹讲席教授。《我知道笼中鸟为何歌唱》是玛雅重要的作品，她获得包括三次格莱美奖、美国国家艺术勋章（2000）、林肯勋章（2008）、总统自由勋章（2011）在内的诸多荣誉。著有数部诗集，其中《在我死前给我一口冷水吧》（1973）获普利策奖提名。

Poet, writer, performer, teacher, and director, Maya Angelou was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and then moved to San Francisco. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, she has also written a cookbook, Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, and five poetry collections, including I Shall Not Be Moved and Shaker,Why Don’t You Sing?
When I was three and Bailey four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed—"To Whom It May Concern"—that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson.

Our parents had decided to put an end to their calamitous marriage, and Father shipped us home to his mother. A porter had been charged with our welfare—he got off the train the next day in Arizona—and our tickets were pinned to my brother's inside coat pocket.

I don't remember much of the trip, but after we reached the segregated southern part of the journey, things must have looked up. Negro passengers, who always traveled with loaded lunch boxes, felt sorry for "the poor little motherless darlings" and plied us with cold fried chicken and potato salad.

Years later I discovered that the United States had been crossed thousands of times by frightened Black children traveling alone to their newly affluent parents in Northern cities, or back to grandmothers in Southern towns when the urban North reneged on its economic promises.

The town reacted to us as its inhabitants had reacted to all things new before our coming. It regarded us a while without curiosity but with caution, and after we were seen to be harmless (and children) it closed in around us, as a real mother embraces a stranger's child. Warmly, but not too familiarly.

We lived with our grandmother and uncle in the rear of the Store (it was always spoken of with a capital s), which she had owned some twenty-five years.

Early in the century, Momma (we soon stopped calling her Grandmother) sold lunches to the sawmen in the lumberyard (east Stamps) and the seedmen at the cotton gin (west Stamps). Her crisp meat pies and cool lemonade, when joined to her miraculous ability to be in two places at the same time, assured her business success. From being a mobile lunch counter, she set up a stand between the two points of fiscal interest and supplied the workers' needs for a few years. Then she had the Store built in the heart of the Negro area. Over the years it became the lay center of activities in town. On Saturdays, barbers sat their customers in the shade on the porch of the Store, and troubadours on their ceaseless crawlings through the South leaned across its benches and sang their sad songs of The Brazos while they played juice harps and cigarbox guitars.