The Heart of a Woman

Before reading this, I knew Maya Angelou as a civil rights activist and a renowned poet. I had NO idea how incredible a life she lived. In the span of the ~6 years of this book (which I gather by how much her son aged), she started as a single mother in San Francisco, spending a few weeks hosting Billy Holiday (who was apparently kind of an awful person); then moving to New York to become a fundraiser for the civil rights movement, meeting with Martin Luther King and Malcom X; and rubbing elbows with the likes of James Baldwin as part of the Harlem Writer's Guild; acting in a play with James Earl Jones; moving to Cairo with the South African activist she married only to leave his sorry, controlling ass soon after to move to Ghana, where her son almost died before attending university. And this is all BEFORE she became a famous author. Like... woah. And then there's the writing. The writing!! Of course, it was economical and lovely throughout, but sometimes she would so perfectly, poetically describe a scene or a feeling, I was so taken aback I had to dogear the page and reread a few times. Just a beautiful book. Can't wait to read more of her autobiographies and learn more of her amazing life and mellifluous prose.