Gather Together in My Name

This book is the second part of the fictional memoir of the American poet Maya Angelou, a sweet extension of an autobiography full of inspiration, challenge and suspense. In this part, published in 1974, Maya Angelou takes us through an important stage of her life, adolescence, continuing the narrative from where her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, left off, and carrying us to witness the descent of a single mother down the social ladder, into poverty and crime. This work represents an important era in the history of a woman who managed to climb to the top of the cultural pyramid in American society, as its chapters move us through pivotal stations that contributed to shaping the personality of the most important poet of African origin in the world. Maya Angelou draws the title of this second part of her memoirs from the Bible, in order to point, by deliberate paradox, to the community's need to gather around the imperfect image of the human being, so that everyone may discover, exceptionally, that life, however varied its meanings, can become clear if we look at it as African Americans did after the Second World War as they confronted life in a society dominated by white people.