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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the 1969 autobiography about the early years of writer and activist Maya Angelou. The first in a six-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. In the course of Caged Bird, Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to racism. Angelou was challenged by her friend, author James Baldwin, and her editor, Robert Loomis, to write an autobiography that was also a piece of literature. Because Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, reviewers often categorize Caged Bird as autobiographical fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change, and expand. The book covers topics common to autobiographies written by black American women in the years following the civil rights movement: a celebration of black motherhood; a critique of racism; the importance of family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition. Caged Bird was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and remained on The New York Times paperback bestseller list for two years. However, the book's graphic depiction of childhood rape, racism, and sexuality have caused it to be challenged or banned in some schools and libraries. (more...)

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• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development blacklists Costa Rica, Malaysia and the Philippines as non-cooperative tax havens.
• Najib Tun Razak (pictured) replaces Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Prime Minister of Malaysia after the ruling coalition suffered its worst election result ever.
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April 4: Children's Day in Taiwan and Hong Kong

• 1721 – Robert Walpole took office as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, becoming what would later be recognised as the first British Prime Minister.
• 1859 – Bryant's Minstrels premiered the popular American song "Dixie" in New York City as part of their blackface minstrel show.
• 1949 – Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating NATO, an organization that constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
• 1968 – American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured) was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
• 1969 – Surgeons Denton Cooley and Domingo Liotta implanted the first total artificial heart.
• 1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800.

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