Fem Book Club – I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Mar 20, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Centre for Stories
Fem Book Club is an introduction to a diverse range of texts by women about women. Through informal conversation about each text we will focus on the manifold experiences of being a woman through different moments in history and across varying communities. It is an opportunity to think about and challenge what it means to be a woman and perhaps undermine any assumed universal experience by looking at how people of colour, transgender and non-binary identifying writers, or those who suffer with mental health issues have vastly different experiences of ‘feminism’ or what it is to be a ‘woman’.
This is a welcoming and safe space. We encourage participation from LGBTI women, men, trans and gender diverse persons and non-binary persons.
During this session of Fem Book Club, we’ll be discussing Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
Maya Angelou’s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration.
In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother’s lover.
“I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it’s like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again.” – Maya Angelou.
Centre for Stories’ preferred bookstore is Boffins Books – we value our local book sellers and think they are an important part of the literary community. Boffins stocks a limited number of copies of each Fem Book Club text. Please purchase your copy as soon as possible – if it is out of stock, you can order a copy and they will tend to your needs in a timely fashion. You can see the full collection of Fem Book Club texts here. When purchasing in store, mention our name for 10% off!
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