Ntozake Shange Receives Star on Walk of Fame

Writer Ntozake Shange received her star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame Friday.

Shange's star is located at 6160 Delmar Blvd. in the Delmar Loop, across from the Moonrise Hotel. 

Born Paulette Williams, writer Ntozake Shange lived in St. Louis from age 8 to 13 on Windemere Place in The Ville. Her experiences in St. Louis infuse her work, especially the novels Betsey Brown (1985) and Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter (1994). 

She won an Obie award for her stage play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. Now a standard of the American stage, the 1976-77 Broadway hit was adapted into a major motion picture in 2010.   

A prodigious author of poetry collections, novels and essays as well as plays, Ntozake Shange’s work combines technical innovation and lyric exuberance with a passionate feminist voice writing from an African-American perspective.