American writer Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was sent to live with her paternal grandmother after her parents separated. She and her brother lived with their grandmother – the first time – for 4 years - https://www.careexperienceandculture.com/master/maya-angelou-(writer)

Angelou writes of this experience and of later living back with her mother, being raped by her mother’s partner and returned to her grandmother in her first memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

In this LitHub article https://lithub.com/how-black-and-white-america-reacted-to-maya-angelous-i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings/ Scott Stern discusses the impact of Angelou’s memoir when it was published early 1970.

He writes:

“Caged Bird remained on the bestseller list for the better part of four months (and it has never gone out of print). Its initial paperback print run was an astounding 350,000 copies. Soon Caged Bird was nominated for the 1970 National Book Award…”