Margaret Courtney-Clarke
  • Home
  • Work
  • Books
  • Projects
  • Biography
  • Contact
Work
  1. Cry Sadness into the Coming Rain
  2. Noah’s Ark in a Sandstorm - Part I
  3. Noah’s Ark in a Sandstorm - Part II
  4. Dog Days
  5. Prix Pictet
  6. Ndebele
  7. African Canvas
  8. Imazighen
  9. South Africa 1969-1983
  10. South West Africa (Namibia) 1978-1983
  11. Maya Angelou
  12. La Ciociaria
  13. Portraits
  • Maya Angelou

    London, U.K. 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya takes refuge in a hotel room to write a poem. California, 1987

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya dances on deck during a cruise in the Bahamas to celebrate her 70th birthday. 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou, Bahamas 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou, 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya celebrates her 80th birthday at Mar-a-Lago, Florida. 2008

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou on stage. New York City, 1987

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou at her favourite work table in her home in Winston Salem surrounded by portraits of her paternal grandmother Annie Henderson (t.l); mother Vivian Baxter (t.r); paternal great-grandmother Kentucky Shannon (b.r). 1994

  • Maya Angelou

    Surrounded by friends at her dining room table, Maya tells stories and recites poetry. Winston Salem, 1996

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya performs during a cruise in the Bahamas to celebrate her 70th birthday. 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Winston-Salem, NC, 1997

  • Maya Angelou

    Four generations: (from left to right) Maya’s grandson Colin carrying daughter Caylin; Guy Johnson, Jessica holding son Brandon; Stephanie Johnson and Maya. Thanksgiving, Winston-Salem 2000

  • Maya Angelou

    American opera singer Jessye Norman greets Maya Angelou. Florida, 2008

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya relaxes at home in Winston-Salem after a days lecture at Wake Forest University, NC. 1995

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya takes a breather in her much loved garden in Winston-Salem. 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya used to say 'we are more alike than we are unalike'. Bahamas, 1998

  • Maya Angelou

    Maya’s firstborn great-grand-child, Caylin Johnson explores hands. NC, 1998

Maya Angelou

It was early 1987, and I found myself with my camera in Northeastern Nigeria in a village whose name I have chosen to forget. I was traveling alone. Airports and roads had been closed as the dry West African wind was blowing—the one they call the Harmattan. My room was essential: bed, table, chair. There was no electricity. The only small window had no glass pane. By night, mosquitos feasted on me. Malaria and dysentery were playing havoc with my body, and self pity was controlling my mind. By day I sat on the side of the road waiting for a vehicle, a truck, mulecart, camel, whatever, to transport me and my cameras somewhere-anywhere-else.


But I had one consolation. With my few personal belongings I had carried with me five paperback books: the autobiographical writings of a woman named Maya Angelou. I considered them part and parcel of my survival baggage. When I needed it most, these writings would offer me courage first of all, and then wisdom and humor, strength and dreams, passion and endurance, poetry and ideas...


Through my photographs of the magnificent art of Africa's women, I later came to meet Maya Angelou. It was to be the first of many visits... that finally culminated in a book Maya Angelou: The Poetry of Living. Forward by Oprah Winfrey (Clarkson Potter, New York, 1999)


Margaret Courtney-Clarke, 1998