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According to writer Hilton Als, Angelou was one of the first African-American female writers to publicly discuss her personal life, and one of the first to use herself as a central character in her books. Writer Julian Mayfield, who calls "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" "a work of art that eludes description", states that Angelou's work set a precedent in describing "the black experience" and in African American literature as a whole.