A vibrant and vital collection that celebrates the three most important muses in the life and work of Ntozake Shange��anguage, music, and dance.
In this deeply personal book, the celebrated writer reflects on what it means to be an artist, a woman, and a woman of color through a beautiful combination of memoir
and essay. She describes where her love for�creative forces began--in her childhood home, a place�where imagination reigned and boredom wasn't allowed. The essays tell stories ranging from
the poignant origin of her celebrated play "for colored girls" to�why Shange needed to deconstruct�the English language to make that production work, from the intensity of the female
experience and the black experience as separate entities�to the difficulty of living both lives simultaneously; from the�intense love of jazz bestowed on her by her father to�a similar
obsession with dance, which came from her mother. With deep sincerity, attention, and her legendary candor, Shange's collection progresses from the public�arena to the private, gathering
along the way the passions and insights of an author who writes with ��uch exquisite care and beauty that anybody can relate to her message��(Clive Barnes, The New York Times).
