Publisher, Random House Audio (September 2008)

Listen to an MP3 audio clip.

“I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters. You are Black and White, Jewish and Muslim, Asian, Spanish speaking, Native Americans and Aleut. You are fat and thin and pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered, and I am speaking to you all. Here is my offering to you.” –from Letter to My Daughter

For a world of devoted fans, a much-awaited new volume of absorbing stories and inspirational wisdom from one of our best-loved writers.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou’s path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight.

Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude: how she was brought up by her indomitable grandmother in segregated Arkansas, taken in at thirteen by her more worldly and less religious mother, and grew to be an awkward, six-foot-tall teenager whose first experience of loveless sex paradoxically left her with her greatest gift, a son.

Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a “lifelong endeavor,” or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice–Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of women she considers her extended family.

Like the rest of her remarkable work, Letter to My Daughter entertains and teaches; it is a book to cherish, savor, and share.

About the Author: Maya Angelou is an accomplished poet, an award-winning writer, a journalist, an activist, a performer, a dancer, an actress, a director, and a teacher. She is also a three-time Grammy Award winner for her autobiographical spoken-word recordings. Born in St. Louis, she was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and then went to San Francisco. She lives in Harlem, NY, and Winston-Salem, NC. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she is the author of Letter to My Daughter; several poetry collections, including I Shall Not Be Moved and Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?; and a number of books for young readers, including Kofi and His Magic; My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me; and the Maya's World series.