Ntozake Shange

1948-10-18 · Trenton, New Jersey, USA

Ntozake Shange (/ˌɛntoʊˈzɑːki ˈʃɑːŋɡeɪ/ EN-toh-ZAH-kee SHAHNG-Ê; October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) was an American playwright and poet. As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power in much of her work. She is best known for her Obie Award–winning play, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975). She also penned novels including Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo (1982), Liliane (1994), and Betsey Brown (1985), about an African-American girl run away from home. Among Shange's honors and awards were fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and a Pushcart Prize. In April 2016, Barnard College announced that it had acquired Shange's archive. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ntozake Shange, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.