Shange, Ntozake
1948-2018 · Contribution: 1975-2018
Playwriting, poetry, and fiction; created the Obie Award-winning choreopoem 'for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf' (1975) and coined the 'choreopoem' form fusing poetry, dance, music, and song
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
'for colored girls' moved from Off-Broadway to Broadway and became a landmark of Black feminist theater; she invented a new dramatic genre and gave voice to the experiences of women of color.
Life & background
African-American playwright and poet born Paulette Williams on Oct 18, 1948 in Trenton, NJ; took her Xhosa/Zulu names in 1971. MA in American Studies, USC. A founding poet of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe; also wrote novels including 'Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo' (1982). Died Oct 27, 2018.
Sources
- Poetry Foundation; The Public Theater
More in Literature & Writing
Angelou, Maya
1928-2014
Author of 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'; first African American woman to recite an original poem at a U.S. presidential inauguration
Baldwin, James
1924-1987
Author of 'Go Tell It on the Mountain' and 'The Fire Next Time'; one of the first major Black writers to write openly about homosexuality
Baraka, Amiri
1934-2014
Poetry, drama, fiction, and jazz/blues criticism; the play 'Dutchman' (1964), poetry collections 'Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note' (1961) and 'The Dead Lecturer' (1964), and the music history 'Blues People' (1963)
Brooks, Gwendolyn
1917-2000
First African American to win a Pulitzer Prize, awarded in 1950 for her poetry collection 'Annie Allen'