Today's birthday, April 4

Maya Angelou is one of the most celebrated American writers of the 20th century.

Maya Angelou was born in St Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928, as Marguerite Annie Johnson.

After a traumatic incident with her mother's boyfriend at age eight Angelou became mute for five years, a period considered to have developed her memory and love of literature.

With a penchant for music and the arts, she moved to New York City in 1951 to study African dance.

After a year in the Big Apple she divorced her husband and crossed the country to San Francisco where she became a nightclub singer and dancer.

Her success on the nightclub circuit led to the recording of her first album Miss Calypso in 1957.

She changed her name to Maya Angelou and performed in several off-Broadway musicals.

Angelou returned to New York in 1959 to pursue her love of writing and became involved in the civil rights movement after hearing Martin Luther king Jr speak.

She then spent time in the 60s living in Egypt and then Ghana, where she worked as a freelance writer and editor.

Upon her return to America she penned her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969.

The book made literary history as the first best-selling non-fiction title by an African-American woman.

When Angelou's close friend Martin Luther King Jr was shot on her birthday in 1968, she stopped celebrating it, instead choosing to mourn the man she so admired.

After her debut publication, she went on to write memoirs, plays, movie scripts and short stories, including the Pulitzer prize-nominated poetry collection Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie.

Angelou died on May 28, 2014.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

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