# My Journey With Maya

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/tavis-smiley/my-journey-with-maya/9780316341776

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/tavis-smiley/my-journey-with-maya/9780316341776.json

![My Journey With Maya](https://quivercdn.com/covers/back-bay/tavis-smiley/my-journey-with-maya_978-03-1634-177-6.jpg?v=2026-05-14%2008%3A47%3A53)

- Book: [My Journey With Maya](https://www.bookquiver.com/tavis-smiley/my-journey-with-maya) ([My Journey With Maya.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/tavis-smiley/my-journey-with-maya.md))
- Authors: [Tavis Smiley](https://www.bookquiver.com/tavis-smiley)
- Publisher: back_bay
- ISBN: 978-03-1634-177-6
- Published: 2016-06-30
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

Tavis Smiley and Maya Angelou met in 1986, when he was twenty-one and she was fifty-eight. For the next twenty-eight years, Angelou was a teacher and a maternal figure to Smiley, and they talked often of art, politics, history, music, religion, and race. In My Journey with Maya, Smiley beautifully recounts a friendship filled with conversation that began when he, a recent college graduate and a poor kid from a big family in the Midwest, accompanied the revered writer on a sojourn to Ghana. Smiley stumbled into a relationship with her that shaped his future and affected the man he became. Like a mother to him, she was generous, challenging, and inspirational--as she was to so many. Here he shares his portrait of Angelou--a highly complex individual who left an indelible imprint on American culture.