Information about the Author: Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Johnson on April 4th 1928 in St. Louis. She was raised by her grandmother in Arkansas, at the age of eight she was raped by her mother's boyfriend and became mute for several years. In her early teens she became San Francisco's first black street car conductor. By the age of 16 she become pregnant and bore a son and by the age of 18 she was a …showed first 75 words of 668 total…

…showed last 75 words of 668 total…She turned out to be still uncertain but pregnant by the age of 16. She did not tell anybody of her condition until she finished school and the novel ends when she gave birth to a boy. The major theme is race relations. As a young girl, Maya explained she wished that she would wake up in a white world, with blond hair, blue eyes and that she would shudder from the nightmare of being black.