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Ntozake Shange

Ntozake Shange ( ; October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) was an American playwright and poet. As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power in much of her work. She is best known for her Obie Award-winning play, ''for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf'' (1975). She also penned novels including ''Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo'' (1982), ''Liliane'' (1994), and ''Betsey Brown'' (1985), about an African-American girl run away from home.

Among Shange's honors and awards were fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and a Pushcart Prize. In April 2016, Barnard College announced that it had acquired Shange's archive. She lived in Brooklyn, New York. Shange had one daughter, Savannah Shange. Shange was married twice: to the saxophonist David Murray and the painter McArthur Binion, Savannah's father, with both marriages ending in divorce. Provided by Wikipedia