Author, poet, dancer, actor, civil rights activist and self-taught professor Maya Angelous has passed away at the age of 86, her publicist has confirmed. She died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Internationally-renowned for her first book, the autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, which detailed her life up to the age of 17, Angelou was not only a key figure in African-American culture but one of the United States’ most respected and loved writers. Her early life saw her take up jobs as diverse as cable-car operator, waiter, sex worker, nightclub singer and world-touring opera actor in a 1954 production of Porgy and Bess. She moved to New York City in 1959 and joined the Harlem Writers Guild, beginning her career as an author.
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