From Publishers Weekly
Playwright and novelist Shange writes of the creative and personal lives of three artistic black sisters from South Carolina. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Kirsten Backstrom
Sassafrass weaves tapestries, Cypress dances, Indigo makes magnificent dolls and plays a wild violin. Their originality is ever-present; even the time-honored transition into womanhood provides Indigo with an opportunity for expression: "Indigo, I don't want to hear another word about it...'" her Mamma says, "I'm not setting the table with my Sunday china for fifteen dolls who got their period today.'" The novel gives a brief, but expressive glimpse of Indigo's future and then moves across the country with Sassafrass and Cypress as they, like Indigo, reinterpret, recreate, and challenge the predictable events of their evolving adult lives. Although some of the language might seem cliched these days, it should be remembered that this book was among the first modern creative experiments that combined tradition with innovation, spirituality with passion, and celebration with grief and fury to express African-American women's experiences in distinctive and explicit terms. Ntozake Shange plunges headlong into the passions of her characters and blends the powerful rhythmic patterns of poetry, music, and speech into her prose, pressing between the pages recipes, herbal remedies, choreography, letters, and dreams, like bright leaves to be preserved. Her novel can be read silently or aloud, but it can also be felt in Cypress's dancing, seen in Sassafrass's weaving, and heard in the unrestrained voice of Indigo's violin. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.


Review
"Miss Shange writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anybody can relate to her message."—Clive Barnes, The New York Times

"A marvel . . . Languages—colloquial, established, lyric—play together like the most lush chamber music, the coolest jazz, the brassiest marches, the hippest jug band . . . [It] leaves us filled with joy and yearning for more."—Philadelphia Inquirer

"A jubilant celebration of womanhood—as moving as the moon . . . pure magic."—Kansas City Star

"Possessed of poetry, motion, and light . . . Shange's tale is poignant, surprising, and deep as she looks at the different worlds of women and their special places therein."—Publishers Weekly



Book Description
Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo is the story of three "colored girls," three sisters and their mama from Charleston, South Carolina: Sassafrass, the oldest, a poet and a weaver like her mother, gone north to college, living with other artists in Los Angeles and trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories and dreams; Cypress, the dancer,who leaves home to find new ways of moving and easing the contractions of her soul; Indigo, the youngest, still a child of Charleston—"too much of the south in her"—who lives in poetry, can talk to her dolls, and has a great gift of seeing the obvious magic of the world.



About the Author
Ntozake Shange is a renowned playwright, poet, and novelist. Her novels include Betsey Brown and Liliane, both of which are available from Picador. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.

ANNOTATION

The story of three sisters making their way in an often hostile world, this is Shange's most beloved novel. "Possessed of poetry, motion and light . . . Shange's tale is poignant, surprising, and deep as she looks at the different worlds of women and their special places therein."--Publishers Weekly.

FROM THE PUBLISHER