Shange, Ntozake
Shange, Ntozake( 1948– ),New Jersey-born author, graduated from Barnard (1970), in 1971 changed her original name, Paulette Williams, which she called a slave name because the first one derived from a man and the second from an irrelevant Anglo-Saxon culture, to a Zulu combination meaning “she who comes with her own things” and “she who walks like a lion.” Her first successful work was for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (1977), which she called a choreo-poem, a stage production loosely combining poetry, dance, and music in evoking experiences of black women. Such dramas that followed included three pieces (1981), three verse plays about black people, and from okra to greens: a different kinda love story (1983). She also followed with novels, Sassafras, Cypress, Indigo (1982), about the experiences and ideas of three young black girls; Betsey Brown (1985),...
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