NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Oprah Winfrey addressed the audience present at the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, November 15.
The Emmy Award winner took the moment to share how Maya Angelou’s autobiography helped her heal from the sexual abuse she suffered at an early age.
The book that healed Oprah Winfrey from childhood trauma
Oprah mentioned Angelou's 1969 book ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' saying, "This year, the nonprofit first book found that just six months after diverse books were added to classroom libraries, classroom reading time increased by four hours per week.”
“I was 15, I was 15 years old when I read my first diverse book, Maya Angelou's 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' and the whole world fell away from me,” she said in Cipriani Wall Street.
“That book gave a voice to my silences, my secrets. It gave words to my pain and my confusion of being raped at nine years old,” Winfrey said.
Winfrey further explained that before reading the book she “didn't know that there was a language, there were words for what had happened to me or that any other human being on earth had experienced it. That's the power of books.”
When did The National Book Awards begin?
The prestigious National Book Awards Ceremony began back in 1950 to celebrate the best of the writers in the US.
The event comprises of cash awards, medals, and other prizes to finalists and winners picked up by a team of "25 distinguished writers, translators, critics, librarians, and booksellers," according to the ceremony's official website.
LeVar Burton is the host of the award show's latest edition. Angelou died at the age of 86 in 2014, reports People.
In 2018, Oprah talked about Angelou’s contribution, “She was there for me always, guiding me through some of the most important years of my life. The world knows her as a poet but at the heart of her, she was a teacher. ‘When you learn, teach. When you get, give’ is one of my best lessons from her.'"
“I’ve been blessed to have Maya Angelou as my mentor, mother/sister, and friend since my 20’s,” she said.
Oprah also lauded Maya's incredible achievements, “She won three Grammys, spoke six languages, and was the second poet in history to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration. But what stands out to me most about Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken, it’s how she lived her life.
Angelou was also a frequent guest on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show.’
