Ntozake Shange (1948-2018) was a poet, novelist, playwright, and performer. She wrote the Broadway-produced and Obie Award-winning FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE / WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, as well as numerous works of fiction, including SASSAFRAS, CYPRESS & INDIGO; BETSEY BROWN; and LILIANE.
Totally extraordinary * New York Times * When I watched for colored girls , I found it difficult to distinguish between her characters and the black women I knew. I had heard versions of Shange's monologues before-whispered in my Brooklyn kitchen, late at night, far from the men who would be anatomized by their revelations. But Shange would have none of that intrigue. As one of her characters shouts, i will raise my voice / & scream & holler / & break things & race the engine / & tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face. That call undid something in me. It shattered the Negro propriety I knew and lived by. The force of Shange's writing seemed to say, Fuck the old rule of not airing your female business in front of colored men, white people, let alone the rest of the world. You own the copyright on your life -- Hilton Als Encompassing, it seems, every feeling and experience a woman has ever had * New Yorker *