Busboys Books Presents: Eve Ensler for The Apology
Date and Time
May 24, 2019 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
May 24, 2019 6:00 pm
14th & V
Books will be available in our bookstore for purchase. This is a free event, seating is first come, first served. Full menu and bar will be available during the event.
Like millions of women, Eve Ensler—author of one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, The Vagina Monologues—has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father as a girl, Eve has grappled with this betrayal and its effects for her whole life, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an artist and anti-violence activist, Eve decided she would not wait any longer. She could imagine an apology for herself.
THE APOLOGY, written by Eve from her father’s point of view in the words she has always needed to hear, attempts to transform the abuse she suffered with unflinching truthfulness, compassion, and an expansive vision for the future. Through THE APOLOGY, Eve has set out to provide a new way for herself and a possible road for others, so that survivors of abuse may finally envision how to be free. She grapples with questions she has sought answers to since she first realized the impact of her father’s abuse on her life: How do we offer a doorway rather than a locked cell? How do we move from humiliation to revelation, from curtailing behavior to changing it, from condemning perpetrators to calling them to reckoning? What will it take for abusers to genuinely apologize?
At this cultural moment of public reckoning, Eve’s message has the power to prompt real transformation and healing, not only in those who have been abused but also in the ones who have hurt them, a step toward change that is necessary and long overdue. Remarkable and original, THE APOLOGY is a revolutionary work, asking everything of each of us: courage, honesty, and forgiveness.
Eve Ensler is a Tony Award-winning playwright, author, performer, and activist. Her international phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in 48 languages and performed in more than 140 countries. She is the author of the NYT bestseller I Am an Emotional Creature, In the Body of the World, and many more. She is the founder of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and One Billion Rising, the largest global mass action to end gender-based violence in over 200 countries. She is a co-founder of the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Eve’s latest book The Apology, out now, is a powerful, life-changing examination of abuse and atonement. The Washington Post calls it “a slim book of unbearable heft.” And Booklist gave it a starred review, saying: “Ensler’s transfixing, appalling, revelatory, and cathartic performance deepens her mission of transmuting her pain into clarion stories that engender understanding, openness, healing, and liberation … Daring and resounding.”
