Betsey Brown (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Shange, originally named Paulette Williams, was born on October 18, 1948, in Trenton, New Jersey. She was the oldest of four children growing up in a materially comfortable, intellectually stimulating, and politically aware household. Her father, a surgeon, and her mother, a psychiatric social worker, were friends with some of the most notable African-American artists of the day. Jazz giant Miles Davis and race leader and educator W. E. B. DuBois were among the luminaries who were guests at the Williams home. Shange's parents were what "used to be called 'race people.' Life was dedicated to the betterment of the race," Shange explained in an interview with Serena Anderlini in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. However, they were not radicals. Their aspirations for her included going to college and marrying a doctor.

Shange's family moved from Trenton to St. Louis, Missouri, when Shange was eight. There she was bused to a German-American school, where she faced the rejection of white classmates and gained a new firsthand understanding of racism. Shange fell back on the strength of her family's personal and intellectual support and eventually formed a strong bond with the city. When Shange was thirteen, the family returned to Trenton.

Shange married young and began Barnard College at age eighteen. The following year, having separated from her law-student husband, she made her first in a series of attempts to commit suicide. During radical times in the country, Shange felt ashamed of her middle-class background and, at the same time, was frustrated and alienated by the double discrimination she experienced as a black woman. Soon she began expressing her rage outwardly through her writing rather than directing it toward herself. She finished her B.A. at Barnard in 1970 and earned an M.A. in American studies from the University of Southern California in 1973. While there, she assumed her African name, which means "she who comes with her own things" and "she who walks like a lion."

After teaching, performing poetry, and dancing for a few years, Shange went back to New York, where her first play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, was produced in 1975. The show's long Broadway run established Shange as a young artist to watch. It remains her best known and most highly acclaimed work. She has continued to teach while writing pro-lifically in the genres of drama, poetry, and fiction. She is the recipient of many awards, including an Obie Award for drama and a Pushcart Prize for fiction.

Shange had a second marriage which also ended in divorce. She has one daughter. A practicing Methodist Episcopalian, she also follows Santeria, a new-world hybrid of Catholic and Yoruba spirituality. She identifies herself not as an American, but as a "child of the new world" — that is, of the African diaspora. She told Anderlini, "Where there are black people, I know how to dance, I know the rhythms, I know the food, I know how to have camaraderie, and I can talk and sing."