For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf

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-winningfor colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enufhas excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised byThe New Yorkerfor "encompassing...every feeling and experience a woman has ever had,"for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enufwill be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.

Ntozake Shange is a renowned playwright, poet (Nappy Edges and The Love Space Demands), and novelist (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, Betsey Brown, and Liliane). She lives in Philadelphia.