Synopses & Reviews
Award-winning writer Ntozake Shange and her sister, award-winning playwright Ifa Bayeza achieve nothing less than a modern classic in this epic story of the Mayfield family. Opening dramatically at Sweet Tamarind, a rice plantation on an island off the coast of Georgia, we witness the recently emancipated Elizabeth (Bette) Mayfield saying her goodbyes before embarking for the mainland. With her granddaughter Eudora in tow, she heads to Charleston where they will make lives for themselves as seamstress and fortune-teller. Dora will marry, the Mayfield line will grow, and we will follow them on an journey through the watershed events of America's troubled, vibrant historyfrom Reconstruction to both World Wars, from the Harlem Renaissance to Vietnam and the modern day. Shange and Bayeza give us a monumental story of a family and of America, of songs and why we have to sing them, of home and of heartbreak, of the past and of the future, bright and blazing ahead.
If there are shoulders modern African American women's literature stand upon they belong to Ntozake Shange who revolutionized theater and literature with her iconic work for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf in the 1970's. Any of us writing today are inheritors of her genius. Some Sing, Some Cry will show her to be as potent and irrepressible a force as she was thirty years ago.” --Sapphire
Review
"Lyrical... Think of it as Roots with a treble clef—a confident, lively account of love, art and what falls between."
--Kirkus Reviews "Vibrant... Some Sing, Some Cry is Shange and Bayeza at their poetic best." --Essence "Solid gold... Ntozake Shange and her sister, Ifa Bayeza, partner to write a lyrical and epic novel." --Ebony
“Revered poet, playwright, and novelist Shange teams up with her award-winning playwright sister Bayeza in this encompassing historical saga of African American life. In its riveting dramatization of the promise of emancipation, the brutality of the Reconstruction, the baroque cruelty of the Jim Crow era, all the way to the possibilities of the digital age, this bittersweet tale of seven generations in a family of mixed blood and musical genius weaves together essential historical facts and profound emotional truths. With music as a sustaining force, Shange and Bayezas epic of courage, improvisation, and transcendence is glorious in its scope, lyricism, and spectrum of yearnings, convictions, and triumphs.”
-Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)
“A sweeping African-American saga animating 200 years of history through the voices of seven generations of the Mayfield family's women, beginning with Elizabeth (Ma Bette), a freed slave, and her granddaughter Eudora. Their fate and that of their progeny follows historical events from the Jim Crow South to the civil rights movement with tragedy and triumph. This is a complex poetic treatise on race, culture, love, and family, the use of regional vernacular, dialect, and pure song, resulting in a provocative fictional history.”
-Publishers Weekly
“If there are shoulders modern African-American women's literature stands upon they belong to Ntozake Shange who revolutionized theater and literature with her iconic work for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf in the 1970's. Any of us writing today are inheritors of her genius. Some Sing, Some Cry will show her to be as potent and irrepressible a force as she was thirty years ago.”
--Sapphire, author of Push
“In this epic saga, the sister-sister author combination of Bayeza and Shange offers a richly detailed and boldly colored account of one familys experience in slavery and its legacies for the generations that followed. Some Sing, Some Cry is both moving and arresting.”
-Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Review
Praise for Ntozake Shange:
Ntozake Shange is a unique and gifted, literary executant and works under strong impulses to do things her own way despite settled conventions of craft.” --
Chicago Sun TimesA powerful vision and perfect ear
Shange brilliant captures
disparate places and times.” --
Boston Globe Shange may well set herself along such writers as Toni Morrison and Isabel Allendecreators of poetic and historical tours de force.” --
VibeNo contemporary writer has Ms. Shanges uncanny gift for immersing herself within the situations and points-of-view of so many different types of women. No wonder she has achieved an almost oracular status among her female readers. She is a writer of many masks. She can serenade you, and she can cut you; she can chirp, as well as growl; she can delight, as well as antagonize.” --Ishmeal ReedPraise for Ifa Bayeza:Bayezas portrayal of Till...gives the events a pent-up, emotionally gripping intensity.”-- Steve Oxman,
VarietyA familiar story, made riveting ... triumphant
. Bayezas fluidly spun, character-rich world premiere
is infused with such beautiful language, such a fine ear for the very individual voices of her characters, such a rich and detailed sense of the nature of the racial divide in the North and South of the time...exceptionally powerful.” --Hedi Weiss,
Chicago Sun-Times
Review
Revered poet, playwright, and novelist Shange teams up with her award-winning playwright sister Bayeza in this encompassing historical saga of African American life. In its riveting dramatization of the promise of emancipation, the brutality of the Reconstruction, the baroque cruelty of the Jim Crow era, all the way to the possibilities of the digital age, this bittersweet tale of seven generations in a family of mixed blood and musical genius weaves together essential historical facts and profound emotional truths. With music as a sustaining force, Shange and Bayezas epic of courage, improvisation, and transcendence is glorious in its scope, lyricism, and spectrum of yearnings, convictions, and triumphs.”
Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)
If there are shoulders modern African-American women's literature stands upon they belong to Ntozake Shange who revolutionized theater and literature with her iconic work for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf in the 1970's. Any of us writing today are inheritors of her genius. Some Sing, Some Cry will show her to be as potent and irrepressible a force as she was thirty years ago.”
--Sapphire, author of Push
In this epic saga, the sister-sister author combination of Bayeza and Shange offers a richly detailed and boldly colored account of one familys experience in slavery and its legacies for the generations that followed. Some Sing, Some Cry is both moving and arresting.”
Annette Gordon-Reed, author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Review
"Shange's serious mission was leavened with plenty of humor and a sense of irony that rendered the nameless ladies in orange and other colors of the rainbow both tragic and triumphantly iconic, a balancing act of the personal and political that has distinguished many of her other works, including the novel Liliane." Erin Aubry Kaplan, Ms. Magazine (Read the entire )
Synopsis
Award-winning writer Ntozake Shange and real-life sister, award-winning playwright Ifa Bayeza achieve nothing less than a modern classic in this epic story of the Mayfield family.
Opening dramatically at Sweet Tamarind, a rice and cotton plantation on an island off South Carolina's coast, we watch as recently emancipated Bette Mayfield says her goodbyes before fleeing for the mainland. With her granddaughter, Eudora, in tow, she heads to Charleston. There, they carve out lives for themselves as fortune-teller and seamstress. Dora will marry, the Mayfield line will grow, and we will follow them on an journey through the watershed events of America's troubled, vibrant history — from Reconstruction to both World Wars, from the Harlem Renaissance to Vietnam and the modern day.
Shange and Bayeza give us a monumental story of a family and of America, of songs and why we have to sing them, of home and of heartbreak, of the past and of the future, bright and blazing ahead.
Synopsis
A groundbreaking work of a family from slavery to the present-day from an iconic writer praised as a "superb storyteller who keeps her eye on what brings her characters together rather than what separate thems". (The New York Times Book Review)
Synopsis
Groundbreaking and heartbreaking, this triumphant novel by two of America's most acclaimed storytellers follows a family of women from enslavement to the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
Award-winning writer Ntozake Shange and real-life sister, award-winning playwright Ifa Bayeza achieve nothing less than a modern classic in this epic story of the Mayfield family. Opening dramatically at Sweet Tamarind, a rice and cotton plantation on an island off South Carolina's coast, we watch as recently emancipated Bette Mayfield says her goodbyes before fleeing for the mainland. With her granddaughter, Eudora, in tow, she heads to Charleston. There, they carve out lives for themselves as fortune-teller and seamstress. Dora will marry, the Mayfield line will grow, and we will follow them on an journey through the watershed events of America's troubled, vibrant history—from Reconstruction to both World Wars, from the Harlem Renaissance to Vietnam and the modern day. Shange and Bayeza give us a monumental story of a family and of America, of songs and why we have to sing them, of home and of heartbreak, of the past and of the future, bright and blazing ahead.
About the Author
NTOZAKE SHANGE is a renowned playwright, poet, and novelist. Her works include the Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, Betsey Brown, Liliane and Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo. Among her honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and a Pushcart Prize. A graduate of Barnard and recipient of a Masters in American Studies from University of Southern California, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. IFA BAYEZA is an award-winning playwright, producer, and conceptual theater artist. Her works for the stage include Amistad Voices, Club Harlem, Kid Zero, Homer G & the Rhapsodies, and The Ballad of Emmett Till, winner of the 2008 Edgar Award for Best Play and a 2007 Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference fellowship. A graduate of Harvard University, Bayeza is a board member of the SonEdna Literary Foundation. She lives in Chicago.