From its inception in California in 1974 to its Broadway revival in 2022, 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 for nearly fifty years. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it meant to be a woman of color in the 20th 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. Now with new introductions by Jesmyn Ward and Broadway director Camille A. Brown, and one poem not included in the original, here is the complete text of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.

A close-knit group of Black innovators formed their own community in the early to mid-twentieth century. These men of vision 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.

Never-before-seen unpublished works by award-winning American literary icon Ntozake Shange, featuring essays, plays, and poems from the archives of the seminal Black feminist writer who stands alongside giants like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, curated by National Book Award winner Imani Perry with a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Tarana Burke.

In the late '60s, Ntozake Shange was a student at Barnard College discovering her budding talent as a writer, publishing in her school's literary journal, and finding her unique voice. By the time she left us in 2018, Shange had scorched blazing trails across countless pages and stages, redefining genre and form as we know them, each verse, dance, and song a love letter to Black women and girls, and the community at large.
Sing a Black Girl's Song is a new posthumous collection of Shange's unpublished poems, essays, and plays from throughout the life of the seminal Black feminist writer. In these pages we meet young Shange, learn the moments that inspired for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf..., travel with an eclectic family of musicians, sit on The Couch opposite Shange's therapist, and discover plays written after for colored girls' international success. Sing a Black Girl's Song houses, in their original form, the literary rebel's politically charged verses from the Black Arts Movement era alongside her signature tender rhythm and cadence that capture the minutia and nuance of Black life. Sing a Black Girl's Song is the continuation of a literary tradition that has bolstered generations of writers and a long-lasting gift from one of the fiercest and most highly celebrated artists of our time.

Ntozake Shange's beloved Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is the story of three sisters and their mother from Charleston, South Carolina.

A jubilant celebration of womanhood--as moving as the moon . . . pure magic. --Kansas City Star

Sassafrass, the oldest, is a poet and a weaver like her mother before her. Having gone north to college, she is now living with other artists in Los Angeles and trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories and dreams. Cypress, the dancer, leaves home to find new ways of moving in the world. Indigo, the youngest, is still a child of Charleston-too much of the south in her-who lives in poetry and has the supreme gift of seeing the obvious magic of the world. Shange's rich and wondrous story of womanhood, art, and passionately-lived lives is written with such exquisite care and beauty that anybody can relate to her message (The New York Times).

From the poet, novelist, and cultural icon behind the award-winning and extraordinary Broadway play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, comes a kaleidoscopic journey through black womanhood (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a moving bilingual collection of new and beloved poems.

In this stirring collection of more than sixty original and selected poems in both English and Spanish, Ntozake Shange shares her utterly unique, unapologetic, and deeply emotional writing that has made her one of the most iconic literary figures of our time.

With a clear, raw, and affecting voice, Shange draws from her experience as a feminist black woman in American to craft groundbreaking poetry about pain, beauty, and color. In the bestselling tradition of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey, Wild Beauty is more than a poetry collection; it is an exquisite call to action for a new generation of women, people of color, feminists, and activists to follow in the author's footsteps in the pursuit of equality and understanding. As The New York Times raves, Ntozake Shange writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anyone can relate to her message.

Multiple starred reviews greeted this amazing collaboration between Ntozake Shange and Kadir Nelson. As Booklist put it: Poet and painter have joined forces to offer an indelible, emotional expression of the strength, beauty, and joy of one woman's character.

Celebrated poet and playwright Ntozake Shange captures the spirit of Civil Rights pioneer Coretta Scott King in this picture book biography gorgeously illustrated by Caldecott Medal artist Kadir Nelson.

Walking many miles to school in the dusty road, young Coretta Scott knew the unfairness of life in the segregated south. A yearning for equality began to grow.

Together with Martin Luther King, Jr., she helped lead change through nonviolent protest. It was the beginning of a journey--with dreams of freedom for all.

Praised as exuberantly engaging by the Los Angeles Times and a beautiful, beautiful piece of writing by the Houston Post, acclaimed artist Ntozake Shange brings to life the story of a young girl's awakening amidst her country's seismic growing pains in Betsey Brown.

Set in St. Louis in 1957, the year of the Little Rock Nine, Shange's story reveals the prismatic effect of racism on an American child and her family. Seamlessly woven into this masterful portrait of an extended family is the story of Betsey's adolescence, the rush of first romance, and the sobering responsibilities of approaching adulthood.

A vibrant and vital collection that celebrates the three most important muses in the life and work of Ntozake Shange--language, music, and dance.

In this deeply personal book, lost in language & sound, the celebrated writer reflects on what it means to be an artist, a woman, and a woman of color through a beautiful combination of memoir and essay. She describes where her love for creative forces began--in her childhood home, a place where imagination reigned and boredom wasn't allowed. The essays tell stories ranging from the poignant origin of her celebrated play for colored girls to why Shange needed to deconstruct the English language to make that production work, from the intensity of the female experience and the black experience as separate entities to the difficulty of living both lives simultaneously; from the intense love of jazz bestowed on her by her father to a similar obsession with dance, which came from her mother.

With deep sincerity, attention, and her legendary candor, Shange's collection progresses from the public arena to the private, gathering along the way the passions and insights of an author who writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anybody can relate to her message (Clive Barnes, The New York Times).

Multiple starred reviews greeted this amazing collaboration between Ntozake Shange and Kadir Nelson. As Booklist put it: Poet and painter have joined forces to offer an indelible, emotional expression of the strength, beauty, and joy of one woman's character.

Celebrated poet and playwright Ntozake Shange captures the spirit of Civil Rights pioneer Coretta Scott King in this picture book biography gorgeously illustrated by Caldecott Medal artist Kadir Nelson.

Walking many miles to school in the dusty road, young Coretta Scott knew the unfairness of life in the segregated south. A yearning for equality began to grow.

Together with Martin Luther King, Jr., she helped lead change through nonviolent protest. It was the beginning of a journey--with dreams of freedom for all.

From the poet, novelist, and cultural icon behind the award-winning and extraordinary Broadway play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, comes a kaleidoscopic journey through black womanhood (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a moving bilingual collection of new and beloved poems.

In this stirring collection of more than sixty original and selected poems in both English and Spanish, Ntozake Shange shares her utterly unique, unapologetic, and deeply emotional writing that has made her one of the most iconic literary figures of our time.

With a clear, raw, and affecting voice, Shange draws from her experience as a feminist black woman in American to craft groundbreaking poetry about pain, beauty, and color. In the bestselling tradition of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey, Wild Beauty is more than a poetry collection; it is an exquisite call to action for a new generation of women, people of color, feminists, and activists to follow in the author's footsteps in the pursuit of equality and understanding. As The New York Times raves, Ntozake Shange writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anyone can relate to her message.

Many learned of Ntozake Shange's ability to blend movement with words when her acclaimed choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf made its way to Broadway in 1976, eventually winning an Obie Award the following year. But before she found fame as a writer, poet, performer, dancer, and storyteller, she was an untrained student who found her footing in others' classrooms. Dance We Do is a tribute to those who taught her and her passion for rhythm, movement, and dance.

After 20 years of research, writing, and devotion, Ntozake Shange tells her history of Black dance through a series of portraits of the dancers who trained her, moved with her, and inspired her to share the power of the Black body with her audience. Shange celebrates and honors the contributions of the often unrecognized pioneers who continued the path Katherine Dunham paved through the twentieth century. Dance We Do features a stunning photo insert along with personal interviews with Mickey Davidson, Halifu Osumare, Camille Brown, and Dianne McIntyre. In what is now one of her final works, Ntozake Shange welcomes the reader into the world she loved best.

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.

A hidden gem by the author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Some Sing, Some Cry, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, and Betsey Brown, a delightfully eclectic tribute to black cuisine as a food of life that reflects the spirit and history of a people. This edition, with delectable illustrations, features additional recipes--including two vegan dishes--that connect the culinary past to the present and welcomes a new generation of readers. With recipes such as Cousin Eddie's Shark with Breadfruit and Collard Greens to Bring You Money, Shange instructs us in the nuances of a cuisine born on the slave ships of the Middle Passage, spiced by the jazz of Duke Ellington, and shared by generations across the African diaspora. Rich with personal memories and historical insight, If I Can Cook/You Know God Can is a timeless story of the migration of a people and the cuisine that marks their living legacy and celebration of taste.

Muhammad Ali is considered by many to have been the finest athlete of the twentieth century. Here is a compelling testimony to his courage, resilience in the face of controversy, and boxing prowess by Obie Award-winning author Ntozake Shange. In her own words, Shange shows us Ali and his life, from his childhood in the segregated South, to his meteoric rise in boxing to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World. Edel Rodriguez's stunning artwork combines pastels, monoprint woodblock ink linework and spray paint on colored papers to capture Ali's power, spontaneity, and energy. A timeline and list of additional resources in the backmatter help make this a standout picturebook biography of the man known around the world as The Greatest.

The reissue of this compelling portrait will have readers cheering once again for the late American icon.

From the award-winning author of the choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf comes Ntozake Shange's extraordinary novel Liliane, about a woman learning to be who she really is.

A daring portrait of a black woman artist re-creating herself out of social and psychological chaos, the fragmentation that haunts our time, our nation. Ourselves.-Los Angeles Times

Through the polyphonic voices of Liliane Lincoln's childhood friends, lovers, and conversations with her psychoanalyst, Ntozake Shange weaves the life of a remarkable young woman. Liliane Lincoln is an artist who exposes what she knows of herself to the world through her bold and colorful artwork. Gradually, however, Liliane realizes that in order to survive, she must come to terms with what she has kept hidden even from herself.

Jim Crow; Brown v. Board of Education; Bull Connor; KKK; Birmingham; the Lorraine Motel; Rosa; Martin; and Malcolm.

From slavery to the separation of colored and white and from horrifying oppression to inspiring courage, there are countless stories--both forgotten and immortalized--of everyday and extraordinary people who acted for justice during the civil rights movement that changed our nation.

Award-winning poet Ntozake Shange and illustrator Rod Brown give voice to all those who fought for their unalienable rights in a triumphant book about the power of the human spirit.