Ntozake Shange ( ;Ntozake Shange Biography, FilmReference.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018. October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) was an American playwright and poet.Lester, Neal A. (Winter 1990), "At the Heart of Shange's Feminism: An Interview", Black American Literature Forum, 24(4: Women Writers Issue): 717–730. . 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 who runs 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.
Early life Shange was born Paulette Linda Williams in Trenton, New Jersey, to an upper-middle-class African-American family. Her father, Paul T. Williams, was a surgeon, and her mother, Eloise Williams, was an educator and a psychiatric social worker. When she was aged eight, Shange's family moved to the racially segregated city of St. Louis. As a result of the Brown v. Board of Education court decision, Shange was bused to a white school where she endured racism and racist attacks.
Shange's family had a strong interest in the arts and encouraged her artistic education. Among the guests at their home were Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Paul Robeson, and W. E. B. Du Bois. From an early age, Shange took an interest in poetry. While growing up with her family in Trenton, Shange attended poetry readings with her younger sister Wanda (now known as the playwright Ifa Bayeza).Levin, Anne (March 27, 2013), "Author Ifa Bayeza Comes 'Home' at Library Reading and Book Signing", Town Topics. These poetry readings fostered an early interest for Shange in the South in particular, and the loss it represented to young Black children who migrated to the North with their parents. In 1956, Shange's family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where Shange was sent several miles away from home to a non-segregated school that allowed her to receive "gifted" education. While attending this non-segregated school, Shange faced overt racism and harassment. These experiences would later go on to heavily influence her work.
When Shange was 13, she returned to Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey,Lee, Felicia R. (September 17, 2010), "A Writer's Struggles, On and Off the Page", The New York Times: "The sisters were raised in St. Louis and in Lawrence Township, N.J., the oldest of four children of a surgeon, Paul T. Williams, and Eloise O. Williams, a social worker, and educator who also had a fondness for the arts." where she graduated in 1966 from Trenton Central High School.Aubrey, Dan. "In Memoriam: Ntozake Shange", Princeton Info, October 31, 2018. Accessed May 7, 2020. "She graduated from Trenton Central High School in 1966 and received degrees from Barnard College and the University of Southern California." In 1966, Shange enrolled at Barnard College (class of 1970) in New York City. During her time at Barnard, Shange met fellow Barnard student and would-be poet Thulani Davis. The two poets would later go on to collaborate on various works. Shange graduated cum laude in American Studies, then earned a master's degree in the same field from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. However, her college years were not all pleasant. She married during her first year in college, but the marriage did not last long. Depressed over her separation and with a strong sense of bitterness and alienation, she attempted suicide.Holloway, Lynette (October 15, 2010), "Interview With An Author: Ntozake Shange Returns to the Spotlight With Epic Novel and Film Adaptation of Groundbreaking 'For Colored Girls'", BV on Books.
In 1970 in San Francisco, having come to terms with her depression and alienation, Shange rejected "Williams" as a slave name and "Paulette" (after her father Paul) as patriarchal, and asked South African musicians Ndikho and Nomusa Xaba to bestow an African name. In 1971, Ndikho duly chose Ntozake and Shange, which Shange respectively glossed as Xhosa "She who comes with her own things" and Zulu "She who walks like a lion".
Career In 1975, Shange moved back to New York City, after earning her master's degree in American Studies in 1973 from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. She is acknowledged as having been a founding poet of the Nuyorican Poets Café. In that year her first and most well-known play was produced — for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. First produced Off-Broadway, the play soon moved on to Broadway at the Booth Theatre and won several awards, including the Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and the AUDELCO Award. This play, her most famous work, was a 20-part choreopoem — a term Shange coined to describe her groundbreaking dramatic form, combining of poetry, dance, music, and songCarr, Jane (October 28, 2018), "What 'For Colored Girls' meant to us", CNN. — that chronicled the lives of women of color in the United States. The poem was eventually made into the stage play, was then published in book form in 1977. In 2010, the choreopoem was adapted into a film (For Colored Girls, directed by Tyler Perry).
In 1978, Shange became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
Shange subsequently wrote other successful plays, including Spell No. 7, a 1979 choreopoem that explores the Black experience, and starred dancer and choreographer Dyane Harvey-Salaam, which whom she also collaborated on other works.
Shange's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1980) won an Obie Award.
In the 1980s, Shange moved to Texas to be closer to family and took a job teaching at Rice University. She then taught in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston from 1984 to 1986. While there, she wrote the ekphrastic poetry collection Ridin' the Moon in Texas: Word Paintings and served as thesis advisor for poet and playwright Annie Finch. Over the course of her career, she also taught or lectured at Prairie View A&M University (1997-2001), Brown University, Villanova University, DePaul University, Yale University, and Howard University, among other academic institutions.
Shange edited The Beacon Best of 1999: creative writing by women and men of all colors (Beacon Press, ), which featured the work of Dorothy Allison, Junot Díaz, Rita Dove, Louise Erdrich, Martín Espada, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Ha Jin, Jamaica Kincaid, Barbara Kingsolver, Yusef Komunyakaa, Hanif Kureishi, Marjorie Sandor, John Edgar Wideman, and others.
In 2003, Shange wrote and oversaw the production of Lavender Lizards and Lilac Landmines: Layla's Dream while serving as a visiting artist at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Shange's individual poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The Black Scholar, Yardbird, Ms., Essence Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, VIBE, and Third-World Women, and Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 1992.
Relationship to the Black Arts Movement Although Shange is described as a "post-Black artist", her work was decidedly feminist, whereas the Black Arts Movement has been criticized as misogynistic and "sexism had been widely and hotly debated within movement publications and organizations." Amiri Baraka—one of the leading male figures of the movement—denied her as a post-Black artist. With regard to Shange as a part of the black aesthetic and as a post-Black artist, he claimed "that several women writers, among them Michelle Wallace [sic] and Ntozake Shange, like [Ishmael] Reed, had their own 'Hollywood' aesthetic, one of 'capitulation' and 'garbage.
Honors 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.
Personal life and death Shange lived in Brooklyn, New York.Lee, Felicia R. (September 17, 2010), "A Writer's Struggles, On and Off the Page", The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2010. Shange had one daughter, Savannah Shange. Shange was married twice: to the jazz saxophonist David Murray and the painter McArthur Binion, Savannah's father, with both marriages ending in divorce.
Shange died in her sleep on October 27, 2018, aged 70, in an assisted-living facility in Bowie, Maryland. She had been ill, having suffered a series of strokes in 2004,Kennedy, Mark (October 27, 2018), "Author Ntozake Shange of 'For Colored Girls' fame has died", ABC News. but she "had been on the mend lately, creating new work, giving readings and being feted for her work." Her sister Ifa Bayeza (with whom she co-wrote the 2010 novel Some Sing, Some Cry)Smith, Harrison (October 28, 2018), Shange, black feminist poet and playwright of ‘For Colored Girls,’ dies at 70", The Washington Post. said: "It's a huge loss for the world. I don't think there's a day on the planet when there's not a young woman who discovers herself through the words of my sister."
Awards NDEA fellow, 1974 Obie Award Outer Critics Circle Award Audience Development Committee (Audelco) Award Mademoiselle Award Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop Award, 1978 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, 1981 (for Three Pieces) Guggenheim fellowship, 1981"Ntozake Shange", John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Medal of Excellence, Columbia University, 1981"Complete List of Recipients (1945-Present)", Office of the Secretary of the University, Columbia University in the City of New York. Obie Award, 1981, for Mother Courage and Her Children Nori Eboraci Award Barnard College, 1988 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund annual writer's award, 1992 Paul Robeson Achievement Award, 1992 Arts and Cultural Achievement Award National Coalition of 100 Black Women (Pennsylvania chapter), 1992 Taos World Poetry Heavyweight Champion, 1992, 1993, 1994 Living Legend Award, National Black Theatre Festival, 1993 Claim Your Life Award WDAS-AM/FM, 1993 Monarch Merit Award National Council for Culture and Arts Supersisters trading card set (one of the cards featured Shange's name and picture), 1979 Pushcart Prize St. Louis Walk of Fame inductee Proclamation of "Ntozake Shange Day" (Borough of Manhattan, New York) by Congressman Charles Rangel on June 14, 2014."I found god in myself: A Conversation with Ntozake Shange", Souleo Universe, November 11, 2016. Langston Hughes Medal, 2016, City College of New York Shelley Memorial Award
Nominations Emmy Award, 1977, nominee, Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Special, An Evening with Diana Ross The Big Event Tony Award, 1977, nominee, Tony Award for Best Play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf Grammy Award, 1978, nominee, Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf
Works
Plays for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf (1975). Nominated for a Tony Award, Grammy Award, and Emmy Award; first published 1976; updated 2010 with a new section, "Positive" (Scribner). A Photograph: Lovers in Motion (1977). Produced Off-Broadway by Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival at The Public Theater.