Ntozake Shange “For Colored Girls” Author, Playwright, Passes Away

NEW YORK, NY. (THECOUNT) — Author, Ntozake Shange, perhaps best known for the 1975 Obie Award-winning play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” passed away Saturday, according to her daughter. She was 70.

Daughter, Savannah Shange, said Saturday that her mother died in her sleep at an assisted living facility in Bowie, Maryland. She had suffered a series of strokes in 2004.

Shange’s “For Colored Girls” describes the racism, sexism, violence and rape experienced by seven black women. It has been influential to generations of progressive thinkers, from #MeToo architect Tarana Burke to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. After learning of Shange’s death, Nottage called her “our warrior poet/dramatist.”

Family member took to Twitter to announce the sad news:

“To our extended family and friends, it is with sorrow that we inform you that our loved one, Ntozake Shange, passed away peacefully in her sleep in the early morning of October 27, 2018. Memorial information / details will follow at a later date. The family of Ntozake Shange” source