‘Celebrates the capacity to master pain and betrayals with wit sister-sharing, reckless daring, and flight and forgetfulness if necessary’ Toni Cade Bambara

‘The force of Shange’s writing seemed to say, Fuck the old rule of not airing your female business in front of colored men, white people, let alone the rest of the world. You own the copyright on your life’ Hilton Als

‘Encompassing, it seems, every feeling and experience a woman has ever had’ New Yorker

‘Totally extraordinary’ New York Times

i will raise my voice / & scream & holler / & break things & race the engine / & tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face

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 is 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 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.

With an introduction by Bernardine Evaristo

A W&N Essential