Oprah Winfrey Says Maya Angelou Book Helped Her Process Childhood Sexual Abuse: ‘Gave Words to My Pain’

Winfrey gave a speech about the impact of books at the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner in New York City on Wednesday

Oprah Winfrey is revealing how a book by the late Dr. Maya Angelou helped her process the sexual abuse she faced as a child.

Speaking at the 74th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner in New York City on Wednesday, Winfrey, 69, gave a speech and mentioned how Angelou's 1969 book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,  helped her give “words to my pain and my confusion.”

“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,” Winfrey said in Cipriani Wall Street. “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.”

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The former talk show host added that it was the first book she had read as a 15-year-old that had a Black protagonist. “That book gave a voice to my silences, my secrets,” Winfrey said. “It gave words to my pain and my confusion of being raped at nine years old.”

Winfrey went on to explain 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,” adding, “That's the power of books.”

The National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner has existed as a celebration of the best writers in the U.S. since its founding in 1950. The event offers cash awards, medals and other prizes to finalists and winners, which are selected by a team of "25 distinguished writers, translators, critics, librarians and booksellers," per the ceremony's official website. For its 2023 iteration, LeVar Burton was tapped as the award show's host, with Winfrey serving as a special guest.

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Angelou died in 2014 at the age of 86. Winfrey has previously opened up about how the poet made a lasting impact on her life. In 2018, she described Agelou as a mix of a friend, mentor and mother figure, and gained inspiration from her for Winfrey’s A Wrinkle in Time character, Mrs Which.

“I’ve been blessed to have Maya Angelou as my mentor, mother/sister and friend since my 20’s,” Winfrey told Variety after Angelou died in 2014. “She was there for me always, guiding me through some of the most important years of my life.”

Before her death, Angelou had also appeared many times on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

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