Maya Angelou wrote the autobiographical novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Published in 1969, the book recounts Angelou's childhood and early adolescence, beginning when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The narrative ends when Maya becomes a mother at age 16, tracing her movement from trauma and racism toward literacy, self-respect, and independence.
The book is generally classified as an autobiography, although Angelou uses techniques associated with fiction, including vivid characterization, shaped dialogue, and thematic structure. It became the first of seven autobiographical volumes and helped open new literary possibilities for the American memoir, particularly for Black women writers.
The title comes from “Sympathy,” a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Its caged bird symbolizes a person constrained by racism, violence, and social oppression, while singing represents the persistence of identity and hope. Readers sometimes call the book a novel, as the question does, but autobiography is the more precise genre label.