Hardcover. London, The Folio Society, reprint, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown patterned cloth with gilt lettering to spine, in slipcase. Maya Angelou's autobiographical account of her childhood and early youth growing up in 1930's America, is an evocation of a black girl's struggle against her oppressors. A great American classic, Maya Angelou's powerful and perceptive memoir forged a path for Black American women's writing and made her an international icon. Written in 1969, it recounts her early experiences as a woman of color in the segregated Deep South where, surrounded by bigotry and poverty, daily life was lived on a knife-edge.