Photo Credit: Jeffrey L. St. Mary |
Ntozake means "she who comes with her own things, and Shange
means "who walks like a lion."
Shange attended Barnard College (B.A., 1970) and the University of Southern California (M.A., 1973). She taught humanities, women's studies, and Afro-American studies at California colleges from 1972 to 1975. During this period she also made public appearances as a dancer and reciter of poetry. Her 1975 theatre piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf quickly brought her fame.
For Colored Girls is a group of 20 poems for seven actors on the power
of black women to survive in the face of despair and pain. It ran for seven
months Off-Broadway in New York City, then moved to Broadway and was
subsequently produced throughout the United States and on television.
(Reference: The Encyclopedia Britannica Guide to Black History http://www.blackhistory.eb.com/)
 Ellington Was Not a StreetClick to order via Amazon By Ntozake Shange, Illustration by Kadir A. Nelson Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award ISBN: 0689828845 In a reflective tribute to the African-American community of old, noted poet Ntozake Shange recalls her childhood home and the close-knit group of innovators that often gathered there. These men of vision, brought to life in the majestic paintings of artist Kadir Nelson, lived at a time when the color of their skin dictated where they could live, what schools they could attend, and even where they could sit on a bus or in a movie theater. Yet in the face of this tremendous adversity, these dedicated souls and
others like them not only demonstrated the importance of Black culture in
America, but also helped issue in a movement that "changed the world." Their
lives and their works inspire us to this day, and serve as a guide to how we
approach the challenges of tomorrow. Format: Paperback, 1st ed., 80pp. AALBC.com Best-selling Book March 2001 Songs of love and urban tragedy from one of the preeminent African-American writers of our time. Shange's poems express the need to be felt and heard, to be necessary. In this love space, we all wear our desires, t-cells, and hearts on our sleeves and experience all that comes with wanting to get hold of life, or someone to love.
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 For
Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide
when the Rainbow Is Enuf: A Choreopoem(Click title or book to purchase on-line) Format: Paperback, 1st ed., 64pp. From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.
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Playwright, novelist, poet Ntozake Shange turns her attention to children’s literature, and offers readers a tough lesson on racism and hate crimes. What begins as a typical school day in Brooklyn, New York turns into a nightmare for grade-schooler Helene-Angel and her big brother, Mauricio, in this unusual children’s tale by award-winning playwright, novelist, and poet, Ntozake Shange. Loosely based on incidents that took place in the Bronx, where young black children were attacked by white gangs and spray-painted white, Whitewash is as emotionally compelling as any Shange work.
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 Title:
Sassafrass,
Cypress & Indigo(Click title or book to order on-line) Publisher: St. Martin's Press, Inc. Date Published: January 1996 Format: Trade Paper My first Ntozake Shange novel. I was captivated by not only her sense of timing, characters and plot, but how she engaged all of the senses in telling this story of three sisters. A novel of experience. Shange made a believer out of me. ~Thumper, AALBC.com
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 Betsy
BrownClick Tile To Order 0312134347 Format: Paperback, 207pp. The novelist presents "the life of a prosperous black family in St. Louis during 1957, the year of school desegregation. The story focuses on threegenerations of women, 13-year-old Betsey Brown and her mother and grandmother."
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Other titles by Ntozake Shange
The Black Book Robert Mapplethorpe, Ntozake Shange
Hardcover / Pub. Price: $50.00
Black Book: Miniture Ed. Robert Mapplethorpe, Ntozake Shange,
Paperback / Pub. Price: $10.95
A Daughter's Geography, Vol. 1
Paperback / Pub. Price: $8.95
I Live in Music Ntozake Shange, Linda Sunshine (Editor), Romare Bearden
(Illustrator)
Hardcover / Pub. Price: $15.95
Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter
Paperback / Pub. Price: $12.00
May Your Days Be Merry & Bright: And Other Christmas Stories by Women Susan
Koppelman, Ntozake Shange, Louisa May Alcott, Grace Paley
Mass Market Paperback / Pub. Price: $5.99
Nappy Edges
Paperback / Pub. Price: $10.95
Ntozake Shange: A Critical Study of the Plays Neal A. Lester, Ntozake Shange
Hardcover / Pub. Price: $53.00
Selected from Contemporary American Plays: An Anthology, Vol. 1 Jules Feiffer,
Ntozake Shange, Neil Simon, August Wilson, Horton Foote, Alfred Uhry,Marsha
Norman,Literacy Volunteers of New York City Sta (Editor)
Paperback / Pub. Price: $3.95
Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America Rebecca Carroll,Ntozake
Shange
Paperback / Pub. Price: $12.00
Three Pieces, Pbk Ed.
Paperback / Pub. Price: $10.95
Ridin' the Moon in Texas: Word Paintings
Paperback / Pub. Price: $9.95
Related Links
The Encyclopedia Britannica Guide to Black History
http://www.blackhistory.eb.com/micro/727/22.html
