Eve Ensler: In The Body Of The World: A Memoir

KPFA Radio + Pegasus Books presents
EVE ENSLER
IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD
A Memoir
Hosted by Erica Bridgeman
Monday, May 20, 7:30 pm
First Congregational Church
2501 Harrison @ 27th Street, Oakland
tickets: $35 advance (Includes signed book), $38 door: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/364746 :: 800-838-3006 or Pegasus Books (3 locations: 1855 Solano/Berkeley, 2349 Shattuck/ Berkeley, 5560 College Ave/Oakland), or Marcus Books, Mrs. Dalloway’s, Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, DIESEL a Bookstore. SF: Modern Times Info:http://www.kpfa.org/events KPFA benefit

Even though Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body—how to talk about it, how to protect and value it—she has spent much of her life disassociated from her own body. This disconnection was brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.”

But Eve is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered by her encounter with the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment she is forced to become first and foremost a body – pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all the distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the Earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully – and gratefully – joined to the body of the world.

Unflinching, generous, sometimes humorous, always inspiring, IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD is a transformative work that calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.

Internationally renowned playwright, activist and author (The Vagina Monologues and I Am an Emotional Creature, among other works) Ensler is the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over $90 million for local groups and activists.

Advance praise for In The Body of the World -

“Astonishing” —Mary Oliver

“A masterpiece! Ensler has accomplished the impossible: woven huge, bold, world-changing ideas together with beautiful writing, amazing metaphors, and original structure. Truly one of the most courageous and original works of our time.” —Naomi Klein

“I dare anyone to read In the Body of the World without crying, without crying out, without getting up out of their chair and rising to this beautiful broken world with awe and gratitude. Eve Ensler embodies the fierce flame of love on the page and in the world. There is no pity here, only the raw force of courage in the face of fear and violence, and the healing grace of honesty.”
—Terry Tempest Williams