Her poetry of self inspired the oppressed across the world to believe that they could reveal their personal experience.
![Maya Angelou's impact was worldwide, writes Williams [AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/201452974139113580_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)

Kate Williams is an author, historian and broadcaster on history, culture and the arts. She has written four history books and one novel. Her second novel, Storms of War, the first of a trilogy about a family from 1914 to 1939, will be out in July.
Her poetry of self inspired the oppressed across the world to believe that they could reveal their personal experience.
![Maya Angelou's impact was worldwide, writes Williams [AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/201452974139113580_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Shakespeare gave his travel-obsessed Elizabethan audience a chance to enjoy the representation of new places.
![Schoolchildren from Latvia to Chile to Chad learn the cadences of Shakespeare, writes Williams [Getty Image]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/20144275416670734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)
Today’s English literature reflects ethnic diversity and it’s not just the current fashion.
![Zadie Smith's book was a heartening promise that Britain really was a melting pot for different races, writes Williams [EPA]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014413111526177734_20.jpeg?resize=270%2C180&quality=80)