Ntozake Shange Summary

When African American writer Ntozake Shange's (born 1948) for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem appeared on the theater scene in New York City in 1975, i... Read more

In the foreword to Three Pieces (1981), Ntozake Shange calls herself "a poet or writer/rather than a playwright." In doing so, she seeks to free herself from the constraints of conventional theater. S... Read more

Critical Essay by Toni Cade Bambara [Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf] is a comfortably loose-strung series of portraits and narratives a... Read more

Critical Essay by Mel Gussow Adaptations of classics are often based on a simple transfer in period; costumes and accents change, but almost everything else remains the same. In direct contrast, Ntoz... Read more

Critical Essay by Frank Rich The text of Miss Shange's "Mother Courage" … raises some troubling questions. What are an adapter's responsibilities to the original wo... Read more

Critical Essay by Sandra Hollin Flowers There are as many ways of looking at Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf as there are hues in a ra... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Eder The poetry of perception is not the same as the poetry of drama. In ""For Colored Girls," Ntozake Shange arranged her acid and lyrical perceptions ... Read more

Critical Essay by Christopher Sharp Ntozake Shange's latest musical work … is a workshop production, and it looks it. "Spell #7: A Geechee Quick Magic Trance Manual" is a ... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Eder Poetry is as contagious as poison ivy though less prevalent. Look at the response these days to the dramatic poems in Ntozake Shange's remarkable "Spell N... Read more

Critical Essay by Michael S. Harper Ntozake Shange's "Nappy Edges" is too long a book; there are far too many poems that borrow from and reflect upon popular culture without dram... Read more

In the following review of Liliane, Neilen praises the structure of the novel, which interweaves the main character's therapy sessions with the perspectives of her friends and lovers. She empha... Read more

In the following book review, White praises both Jamaica Kincaid's novel Annie John and Shange's novel Betsey Brown for their representations of young African American women. So compl... Read more

In the following essay, Geis discusses Shange's use of language as an expression of African American women's experience in her performance pieces. … bein alive & bein a wo... Read more

In the following review of "I Live in Music," the reviewer emphasizes the musical elements of the poems and makes note of the "mixed-media art" by Bearden which complements... Read more

In the following review of Liliane, Sayers praises the collage structure of the narrative which combines conversations between Liliane and her psychotherapist with a first-person narrative by Liliane,... Read more