In this exclusive interview with The Root’s contributing editor Harriette Cole, playwright-poet-novelist Ntozake Shange talks about the strokes that almost took her life, the new novel she wrote with her sister and what she told Tyler Perry when he told her he wanted to adapt her Tony Award-winning choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, for the big screen. (Hint: She’s not a fan of Madea.)

While you ask "Why?" Perry asks, "Why not?"