R.I.P.

Award-Winning Playwright Ntozake Shange Dead at 70

The pioneering writer died in her sleep at an assisted living facility on Saturday morning.

Award-winning playwright Ntozake Shange, known for the choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, has passed away at the age of 70. Shange died in her sleep at an assisted living facility on Saturday morning, the Star Tribune reports. Despite suffering several strokes in recent years, Shange had continued to create new work and give readings up until recently. “Zake was a woman of extravagance and flourish, and she left quickly without suffering,” her sister, Ifa Bayeza, told the Tribune. “It’s a huge loss for the world. I don’t think there’s a day on the planet when there’s not a young woman who discovers herself through the words of my sister,” she said. Shange, who has been hailed for empowering women of color in her writing, leaves behind a daughter, Savannah Shange, and granddaughter, Harriet Shange Watkins.