Ntozake Shange, originally named Paulette Linda Williams, was a poet based in Bowie, Maryland. Her poetry, plays, and fiction focused on feminism, race, and sexual anger. Her collections of poetry include Nappy Edges, and Ridin’ the Moon in Texas and her novels include Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter, and Betsy Brown. Shange also wrote children’s books including Whitewash, Daddy Says, and Ellington Was Not a Street. Her theater piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf earned her fame when it was published and performed in 1975. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide is a book of twenty poems focusing on the pain, suffering and survival of Black women. She also wrote many choreopoems, theater pieces the involve dance, poetry, and music. One her most popular is an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother’s Courage.
Information from the Encyclopedia Britannica.