大象传媒

On All Things Considered this week, we mark the death of Maya Angelou, internationally acclaimed writer, poet and activist, who has died at the age of 86.听

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In no fewer than seven volumes of memoir, she wrote powerfully about growing up in the American deep south - her struggles with poverty and racial discrimination, the rape at the age of seven which left her mute for five years,听 motherhood as a single teenager and a period of prostitution.

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She described the acting career which took her to 22 countries, the string of film, theatre and television productions, her marriage to a South African freedom fighter and her stint as a newspaper editor in the Middle East.

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And she told of being commissioned for a key task by the civil rights activist Malcolm X, and learning very soon afterwards that he鈥檇 been murdered - and having an almost identical experience with Martin Luther King.

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Roy Jenkins听 met Dr Angelou during her visit to Hay in 2002, and her passing, gives us another opportunity to hear again from this inspirational woman.