If there are shoulders modern African-American women s literature stands upon they belong to Ntozake Shange, who revolutionized theatre and literature with her iconic work for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf in the 1970s. Any of us writing today are inheritors of her genius. SAPPHIRE, AUTHOR OF PUSH From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp s Public Theater and on Broadway, the Obie Award winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange s words reveal what it meant to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975, when it was praised by The New Yorker for encompassing . . . every feeling and experience a woman has ever had, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Here is a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world. Extraordinary and wonderful . . . Ntozake Shange writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anyone can relate to her message. THE NEW YORK TIMES"