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Ntozake Shange

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Playwright

The Resume

    (October 18, 1948-October 27, 2018)
    Born in Trenton, New Jersey
    Birth name was Paulette L. Williams
    Playwright and poet
    Best known for the play 'for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf' (1975)
    Also wrote the plays 'spell #7' (1979), 'From Okra to Greens/A Different Kind of Love Story' (1983) and 'Whitewash' (1994)
    Poetry collections include 'Nappy Edges' (1978), 'The Love Space Demands (a continuing saga)' (1987) and 'The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family' (2004)
    Wrote the novels 'Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo' (1982), 'Betsy Brown' (1985) and 'Some Sing, Some Cry' (2010)
    Wrote children's biographies of Muhammad Ali, Duke Ellington and Coretta Scott King

Why she might be annoying:

    Her adopted name is difficult to spell and pronounce (en-toe-ZAH-kee SHAHN-gay).
    She got married in college and divorced before graduating.
    She attempted suicide four times, having slashed her wrists, put her head in a gas oven, overdosed on Valium, and driven her car into the ocean.
    She writes her poems almost entirely in lowercase (shades of e e cummings), commenting 'Poems where all the first letters are capitalized bore me.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    Growing up, she was bused to a white school, where she faced harassment and racial attacks.
    She adopted her name from the Xhosa language, with Ntozake meaning 'she who has her own things' and 'Shange' meaning 'she who walks with the lions.'
    She won Obie Awards for the play 'for colored girls...' (1975) and for directing an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's 'Mother Courage and Her Children' (1980).
    Poet Ishmael Reed wrote, 'No contemporary writer has Ms. Shange's uncanny gift for immersing herself within the situations and points of view of so many different types of women.'
    When she sold the film rights to 'for colored girls...' to Tyler Perry, she forbade him from appearing in the film as Madea.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 72.73% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 58 Votes: 53.45% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 72 Votes: 55.56% Annoying