I have been exiled from my body. I was ejected at a very young age and I got lost.
Playwright, author and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body – how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent many years disassociated from her own – a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness.
While working in the Congo, Ensler is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of treatment she is forced to become first and foremost a body – pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all 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.
Playwright, author and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body – how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent many years disassociated from her own – a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness.
While working in the Congo, Ensler is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of treatment she is forced to become first and foremost a body – pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all 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.
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Reviews
This book is a ride, a river ride through rapids and depths and shallows, dried-up eddies, whirlpools and torrents, crystal-clear pools and the vast ocean at the end. What a thrill and what a spear through the heart. I am astounded by the honesty and clarity of each word
Astonishing
Raw and powerful . . . unforgettable
Eve Ensler's memoir is not only wild and raw and incredibly important, it's also that rarest of achievements - a compulsively readable, stunningly rendered work of art that delivers hope and truth, challenge and solace, sometimes simultaneously
Stunning
Moving . . . What Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions did for anxious new mothers, Ensler's memoir does for women who are fighting cancer or may fight it one day
Ensler has written a profound and vulnerable book, full of tenderness and strength. I was amazed by the clarity of her vision and the power of her message about the body and self. This book isn't meant only for patients; it is meant for anyone whose life has intersected with illness - in short, for all of us.
The passion of her writing rattles your soul. This is true literature and true activism
Powerful and satisfying . . . Ensler writes with verve and urgency about dealing with disease, facing her demons, and repairing relationships
I dare anyone to read In the Body of the World without crying, without crying out, without getting up and rising to this beautiful broken world with awe and gratitude. There is no pity here, only the raw force of courage in the face of fear and violence, and the healing grace of honesty
Inspiring and courageously candid . . . a powerful and profound book
Extraordinary . . . necessary . . . [an] intense, riveting memoir
A masterpiece. Ensler has accomplished the impossible: weaving together huge, bold, world-changing ideas with beautiful writing, amazing metaphors, and original structure. Truly one of the most courageous and original works of our time.