Ntozake Shange Explained

Ntozake Shange
Birth Name:Paulette Linda Williams
Birth Date:18 October 1948
Birth Place:Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.
Death Place:Bowie, Maryland, U.S.
Known For:for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975)
Education:Columbia University (BA)
University of Southern California (MA)
Relatives:Ifa Bayeza (sister)
Bisa Williams (sister)

Ntozake Shange (;[1] October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) was an American playwright and poet.[2] 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.[3]

Early life

Shange was born Paulette Linda Williams in Trenton, New Jersey,[4] to an upper-middle-class 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.[5] [6] From an early age, Shange took an interest in poetry.[7] While growing up with her family in Trenton, Shange attended poetry readings with her younger sister Wanda (now known as the playwright Ifa Bayeza).[8] 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.[7] 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,[9] where she graduated in 1966 from Trenton Central High School.[10] In 1966, Shange enrolled at Barnard College (class of 1970) at Columbia University in New York City. During her time at Barnard, Shange met fellow Barnard student and would-be poet Thulani Davis.[11] The two poets would later go on to collaborate on various works.[11] 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.[12]

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[13] to bestow an African name. In 1971, Ndikho duly chose Ntozake and Shange,[14] which Shange respectively glossed as Xhosa "She who comes with her own things" and Zulu "She who walks like a lion".[14] [15]

Career

In 1975, Shange moved back to New York City, after earning her master's degree in American Studies in 1973[16] from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. She is acknowledged as having been a founding poet of the Nuyorican Poets Café.[17] 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 Theater 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 song[18] — 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).

Shange subsequently wrote other successful plays, including Spell No. 7, a 1979 choreopoem that explores the Black experience,[19] and an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1980), which won an Obie Award.[20]

In 1978, Shange became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP).[21] 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 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.

She 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.[22]

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.[23]

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, Daughters of Africa, and Third-World Women.[7]

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."[24] 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.[25] Shange had one daughter, Savannah Shange. Shange was married twice: to the 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,[26] but she "had been on the mend lately, creating new work, giving readings and being feted for her work."[27] Her sister Ifa Bayeza (with whom she co-wrote the 2010 novel Some Sing, Some Cry)[28] 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

Nominations

Works

Plays

Poetry

Novels

Children's books

Essays and non-fiction

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.filmreference.com/film/63/Ntozake-Shange.html Ntozake Shange Biography
  2. 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. .
  3. News: Gans . Andrew . Barnard College Acquires Archives of Ntozake Shange . April 19, 2016 . . April 18, 2016.
  4. Web site: Collins-Hughes . Laura . October 28, 2018 . Ntozake Shange, Who Wrote 'For Colored Girls,' Is Dead at 70 . April 7, 2020 . The New York Times.
  5. Web site: Ntozake Shange. The History Makers. 2016–2017. April 12, 2022.
  6. Web site: Kosseh-Kamada. Mafo. Ntozake Shange Biography. University of Minnesota. May 12, 2014.
  7. Blackwell. Henry. An Interview with Ntozake Shange. Black American Literature Forum. 1979. 13. 4. 134–138. 10.2307/3041478. 3041478.
  8. http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2013/03/27/author-ifa-bayeza-comes-home-at-library-reading-and-book-signing/ "Author Ifa Bayeza Comes 'Home' at Library Reading and Book Signing"
  9. Lee, Felicia R. "A Writer's Struggles, On and Off the Page", The New York Times, September 17, 2010. Retrieved October 3, 2017. "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."
  10. 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."
  11. Web site: Fleischmann. Stephanie. Thulani Davis. Bomb. 33. October 1, 1990. May 12, 2014.
  12. Holloway, Lynette, "Interview With An Author: Ntozake Shange Returns to the Spotlight With Epic Novel and Film Adaptation of Groundbreaking 'For Colored Girls'", BV on Books, October 15, 2010.
  13. Web site: Ansell . Gwen . Farewell to Ndikho Xaba — a little known genius of South African music . . 14 July 2022 . en . 20 June 2019.
  14. Web site: Shange . Ntozake . Ntozake Shange on Sun Ra and How She Came to Have Her Name . Literary Hub . 14 July 2022 . 23 November 2020.
  15. Web site: About Ntozake Shange . Official Ntozake Shange Website . Global Artists Management . 14 July 2022.
  16. Web site: Kosseh-Kamanda. Mafo. Ntozake Shange: Biography/Criticism. University of Minnesota. April 23, 2014.
  17. Web site: History & Awards. Nuyorican Poets Cafe. December 3, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20171201034347/https://www.nuyorican.org/history-and-awards/. December 1, 2017. dead.
  18. Carr, Jane (October 28, 2018), "What 'For Colored Girls' meant to us", CNN.
  19. Web site: Mahne. Theodore. 'Spell #7' offers a dated but passionate, poetic look at black experience. The Times-Picayune. April 22, 2013. April 23, 2014.
  20. Web site: Ntozake Shange Dies: The 'For Colored Girls' Playwright Was 70. Dino-Ray. Ramos. Deadline Hollywood. October 28, 2018.
  21. Web site: Associates The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. www.wifp.org. en-US. June 21, 2017.
  22. Web site: The Beacon Best of 1999. Penguin Random House.
  23. Web site: Choreopoem returns home from Atlanta. The Gainesville Sun. June 13, 2003.
  24. Web site: Salaam . Kaluma [sic] . Kalamu ya Salaam . 1995 . Modern American Poetry Historical Overviews of The Black Arts Movement . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20180722054458/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/blackarts/historical.htm . July 22, 2018 . December 23, 2023 . Department of English, University of Illinois.
  25. Lee, Felicia R. (September 17, 2010), "A Writer's Struggles, On and Off the Page", The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
  26. Kennedy, Mark (October 27, 2018), "Author Ntozake Shange of 'For Colored Girls' fame has died", ABC News.
  27. News: Ntozake Shange, pioneering playwright, poet and novelist, dies at 70. Rohan . Preston. Star Tribune. October 27, 2018. October 27, 2018.
  28. Smith, Harrison (October 28, 2018), Shange, black feminist poet and playwright of ‘For Colored Girls,’ dies at 70", The Washington Post.
  29. https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/ntozake-shange/ "Ntozake Shange"
  30. https://secretary.columbia.edu/honors-and-prizes/previous-recipients/complete?name=&degree_or_honor=All&date_conferred[min]=&date_conferred[max]=&page=3&order=field_recipient_date&sort=desc "Complete List of Recipients (1945-Present)"
  31. Web site: The Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Awards: The art of the possible.... Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Awards.
  32. Web site: Wulf . Steve . Supersisters: Original Roster . ESPN . March 23, 2015 . June 4, 2015.
  33. Web site: St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees. St. Louis Walk of Fame. April 25, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20121031162946/http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/?view=achievement. October 31, 2012. dead.
  34. http://souleouniverse.com/event/i-found-god-in-myself-a-conversation-with-ntozake-shange/ "I found god in myself: A Conversation with Ntozake Shange"
  35. Web site: Announcing the winner of the 2018 Shelley Memorial Award, Ntozake Shange. April 18, 2018. Poetry Society of America. May 3, 2021.
  36. Persico, Joyce J., "Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza — the erstwhile Williams siblings of Trenton — mark careers with new novel, film", NJ.com, October 9, 2010.

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