Quiara Alegría Hudes’s ten favorite books

Quiara Alegría Hudes is a writer, strong wife and mother of two, barrio feminist and native of West Philly, U.S.A. Hailed for her work’s exuberance, intellectual rigor, and rich imagination, her plays and musicals have been performed around the world. They include Water By the Spoonful, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; In the Heights, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and Pulitzer finalist; and Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, another Pulitzer finalist. Her most recent musical, Miss You Like Hell, appeared Off-Broadway at New York’s Public Theater.

One of Hudes's ten favorite books, as shared at Vulture.com:

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf: A Choreopoem by Ntozake Shange

This book is an elixir, spirit medicine, and feminine life force. A series of brown girls’ step into the spotlight and testify to central moments in their girlhood. The final pages make me feel reborn each and every time.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue