Tab Article

Ratings: ★★★★★ (4.8/5)
Genre: Autobiography, Memoir, Biography, African American Literature, Civil Rights, History.

Book Review:
Maya Angelou's ''A Song Flung Up to Heaven'' is the powerful and poignant conclusion to her remarkable series of autobiographies. This volume, covering the years 1965 to 1968, finds Angelou returning to the United States from Ghana at a pivotal moment in American history, and her personal story is once again intertwined with the broader struggle for civil rights.

The book opens with Angelou's arrival in San Francisco, filled with hope and purpose. She has been asked by her friend, Malcolm X, to help him build his new Organization of Afro-American Unity. But just days after her return, Malcolm X is assassinated, plunging her into grief and uncertainty. The narrative then follows her through the next three years, a period marked by both personal and political turmoil. She becomes involved with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the request of Martin Luther King Jr., and she witnesses the rise of the Black Power movement. Her friendships with other writers and artists, including the novelist James Baldwin, provide a source of solace and strength.

The book is filled with Angelou's characteristic wisdom, wit, and compassion. She writes with unflinching honesty about her own struggles, her doubts, and her eventual emergence as a writer. The final, devastating blow comes with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on her 40th birthday, an event that leaves her emotionally shattered. It is her friend James Baldwin who helps her find a way forward, leading to the cathartic moment when she begins to write the words that will become her classic memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

''A Song Flung Up to Heaven'' is a beautiful, moving, and ultimately uplifting testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is an essential read for anyone who has followed Angelou's journey, and a powerful introduction to her life and work. As Barack Obama said, she was ''a truly phenomenal woman.''