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4 Extra Debut. 1965: Back from Africa, Maya is to start working for Malcolm X, but tragedy strikes when he is assassinated. Starring Don Gilet.

When Maya Angelou returns from Ghana the first person she calls is Malcolm X.

She wants to spend some time with her mother and brother in San Francisco before she begins working with Malcolm in New York.

Then Malcolm is assassinated.

Devastated, Maya is shocked by people's apathetic reaction to the news.

Maya Angelou's memoir dramatised in five parts by Patricia Cumper.

Narrator, older Maya ...... Adjoa Andoh
Maya ...... Pippa Bennett-Warner
Malcolm X ...... Don Gilet
Bailey ...... Samuel Anderson
Mother ...... Ellen Thomas

The books that make up the life and times of Maya Angelou are some of the best, most beautiful and haunting pieces of autobiography written.

They run the gamut from life affirming to tragedy and back again with a tone that is a joyous, direct and searingly honest, and are an extraordinary portrait of 20th-century black America.

Director: Pauline Harris

First broadcast on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 in February 2019.

Available now

14 minutes

Last on

Tue 19 Dec 2023 02:15

Broadcasts

  • Mon 25 Feb 2019 10:45
  • Mon 25 Feb 2019 19:45
  • Mon 18 Dec 2023 07:15
  • Mon 18 Dec 2023 12:15
  • Mon 18 Dec 2023 17:15
  • Tue 19 Dec 2023 02:15

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Astonishing words from one of the 20th Century's most iconic writers and poets.

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Dramatisations of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies, plus specially selected archive.