(CNN) -- Maya Angelou, a renowned poet, novelist and actress, has died at age 86, her literary agent, Helen Brann, has announced.
She died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Brann said.
Also a professor, singer
and dancer, Angelou's work spans several professions. In 2011, President
Barack Obama awarded her with the Medal of Freedom, the country's
highest civilian honor.
One of Angelou's most revered books was "I Know Why the Caged Sings."
Writer Julian Mayfield is said to have described the autobiography as "a work of art which eludes description."
Angelou spent her early
years studying dance and drama in San Francisco but dropped out at age
14, instead becoming the city's first African-American female cable car
conductor.
Angelou later returned to high school to finish her diploma and gave birth a few weeks
after graduation. While the 17-year-old single mother waited tables to
support her son, she acquired a passion for music and dance, and toured
Europe in the mid-1950s in the opera production "Porgy and Bess." In
1957, she recorded her first album, "Calypso Lady."
In 1958, Angelou become a
part of the Harlem Writers Guild in New York and also played a queen in
"The Blacks," an off-Broadway production by French dramatist Jean
Genet.
Affectionately referred
to as Dr. Angelou, the professor never went to college. She has more
than 30 honorary degrees and taught American studies for years at Wake
Forest University in Winston-Salem.
"I created myself," she has said. "I have taught myself so much."
Angelou was born April
4, 1928, in St. Louis. She grew up between St. Louis and the
then-racially segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas.
The famous poet got into
writing after a childhood tragedy that stunned her into silence for
years. When she was 7, her mother's boyfriend raped her. He was later
beaten to death by a mob after she testified against him.
"My 7-and-a-half-year-old logic deduced that my voice had killed him, so I stopped speaking for almost six years," she said.
From the silence, a louder voice was born.
Her list of friends is
as impressive as her illustrious career. Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey
referred to her as "sister friend." She counted Martin Luther King Jr.,
with whom she worked during the civil rights movement, among her
friends. King was assassinated on her birthday.
Angelou spoke at least
six languages and worked at one time as a newspaper editor in Egypt and
Ghana. It was during that time that she wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings," which launched the first in a series of autobiographical books.
"I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine ... before she realizes she's reading," Angelou said.
She was also one of the first black women film directors. Her work on Broadway has been nominated for Tony Awards.
Before making it big, the 6-foot-tall wordsmith also worked as a cook and sang with a traveling road show.
"Look where we've all
come from ... coming out of darkness, moving toward the light," she once
said. "It is a long journey, but a sweet one, bittersweet."
Source: CNN
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Source: CNN
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