Ntozake Shange . . .

Photo Credit ©: Troy Johnson

Ntozake means “she who comes with her own things, and Shange means “who walks like a lion.”

Shange, born Paulette Williams in 1948, 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/)

Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel
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by Ntozake Shange & Ifa Bayeza

Hardcover: 576 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press; First Edition edition (September 14, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 031219899X
ISBN-13: 978-0312198992
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.8 inches

Award-winning writer Ntozake Shange and real-life sister, award-winning playwright Ifa Bayeza achieve nothing less than a modern classic in this epic story of the Mayfield family. Opening dramatically at Sweet Tamarind, a rice and cotton plantation on an island off South Carolina’s coast, we watch as recently emancipated Bette Mayfield says her goodbyes before fleeing for the mainland. With her granddaughter, Eudora, in tow, she heads to Charleston. There, they carve out lives for themselves as fortune-teller and seamstress. Dora will marry, the Mayfield line will grow, and we will follow them on an journey through the watershed events of America’s troubled, vibrant history — from Reconstruction to both World Wars, from the Harlem Renaissance to Vietnam and the modern day. Shange and Bayeza give us a monumental story of a family and of America, of songs and why we have to sing them, of home and of heartbreak, of the past and of the future, bright and blazing ahead.

For Colored Girls [Blu-Ray] (2011)
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Directed by Tyler Perry (In Theaters November 5th 2010)

Starring: Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad, Kimberly Elise, Macy Gray, Hill Harper and Omari Hardwick.

Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
SStudio: Lionsgate

FOR COLORED GIRLS brings to the screen Ntozake Shange’s Obie Award-winning play, a poetic exploration of what is to be of color and a female in this world.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow Is Enuf: A Choreopoem

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Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Scribner (September 1, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0684843269
ISBN-13: 978-0684843261
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches

AALBC.com #5 Best-selling Book for the Year 2000

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.

First published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for “encompassing…every feeling and experience a woman has ever had,” for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. 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.

Ellington Was Not a Street
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By Ntozake Shange, Illustration by Kadir A. Nelson

ISBN: 0689828845
Format: Hardcover, 40pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s
Age Range: 4 to 8

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.

The Love Space Demands: A Continuing Saga
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Paperback, 1st ed., 80pp.
ISBN: 0312076274
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.
Pub. Date: April  1992
Edition Description: 1st pbk. ed

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.

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

Betsy Brown Click to order via Amazon

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo Click to order via Amazon

Whitewash Click to order via Amazon

Related Links:

AALBC

http://aalbc.com/authors/ntozake.htm

The Encyclopedia Britannica Guide to Black History
http://www.blackhistory.eb.com/micro/727/22.html

~ by Tracy G. M. James on September 18, 2010.