“As only she can, Eve Ensler shares the story of her father’s ultimate betrayal with both unflinching candor and immeasurable grace. Through sheer creative force, she takes us on her own journey to healing. Though Ensler’s story is deeply personal, its lessons are universal.” – Anita Hill
“The geometry of toxic masculinity is contained within these pages.” – Marc Maron, “WTF with Marc Maron Podcast”
Eve’s Newest Book “The Apology” Out Today, 14 May
Like millions of women, Eve has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father, Eve has struggled her whole life from this betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an anti-violence activist, she decided she would wait no longer; an apology could be imagined, by her, for her, to her.The Apology, written by Eve from her father’s point of view in the words she longed to hear, attempts to transform the abuse she suffered with unflinching truthfulness, compassion, into 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 other survivors of abuse to envision how to finally free themselves. 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?
Remarkable and original, The Apology is an acutely transformational look at how, from the wounds of sexual abuse, we can begin to re-emerge and heal. It is revolutionary, asking everything of each of us: courage, honesty, and forgiveness.
The Apology is published by Bloomsbury. For more info, visit https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-apology-9781635574388/
V-DAY LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE TO EXPLORE THE THEMES RAISED IN THE BOOK
For over 21 years, V-Day, the global activist movement that grew out of The Vagina Monologues, has galvanized women survivors to tell their stories, break the silence, and call out the systemic violence that perpetuates sexual violence against all women, including cis women, trans women, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender based violence. Yet, we haven’t seen men move into the process of true apology. Of reckoning with their actions and moving towards accountability and transformation. Now is that time.
Coinciding with the book release and building upon years of work with survivors, activists and anti-violence groups, V-Day has launched theapologybook.net today as an online space for readers, activists and survivors to process and explore the themes raised in the book, for perpetrators to begin their own processes of accountability and apology, and for survivors to write imagined apologies and offer themselves healing.
Book Tour Scheduled in US, Canada, and the UK
Monday night in NYC, Eve launched her book tour at the 92nd Street Y in conversation with Glenn Close, and featuring special guest, acclaimed actor James Naughton reading passages from the book.
Eve will go on to tour the US, Canada and UK.
More dates coming, check theapologybook.net/book-tour for info
WATCH Eve on Democracy Now!
“Eve Ensler, creator of The Vagina Monologues, has written a remarkable new book addressing trauma, abuse and what it takes to heal. The Apology is written from the perspective of her father, who sexually and physically abused Ensler as a child. In the book’s introduction she writes: ‘My father is long dead. He will never say the words to me. He will not make the apology. So it must be imagined. For it is in our imagination that we can dream across boundaries, deepen the narrative, and design alternative outcomes.'” – Democracy Now!
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE APOLOGY
“…one of the most shatteringly brilliant books I have read. As soon as I finished it, I read it again, and again, and again (really).” – Decca Aitkinhead, The Sunday Times of London
“The Apology” contains the words that Ensler needed to hear her father say. It’s a slim book of unbearable heft. The text is presented as a letter written by her father from a kind of void beyond the grave, “floating, unmoored, spinning.” – The Washington Post
“Playwright Eve Ensler exposes the origins of her famed play, “The Vagina Monologues,” by assuming the voice of her father, Arthur, who she says molested, raped and abused her throughout childhood. “The Apology” is more than a reckoning with a man long dead; it’s a healing exploration of how survivors can recover from sexual abuse.” – USA Today
“Eve’s book is a guide for those who have never received the apology they deserve, and for those who know there is one they’ve yet to give.” – Kimberlé Crenshaw, author of On Intersectionality and V-Day Board Member
“The Apology is a brave step toward radical healing—not just for Eve Ensler, but for all those who accept her invitation to confront the trauma of sexual abuse and find the apology they might never hear. But Ensler’s book can also be seen as an invitation to men and a roadmap for the apologies that need to be made.” – Tony Porter, CEO, A Call to Men
“Accusation and punishment of the guilty is one critical step in reckoning with abuse. Eve Ensler offers another crucial step forward: the deep self-reckoning and accounting that a true apology requires. This is an urgently needed book right now.” – Jane Fonda, actor, activist and V-Day Board Member
“An apology is where human action meets divine spirit. It can be so tender, brave and beautiful a thing that it has the power to free the injured soul from the curse of victimhood and suffering. At its most heartfelt an apology promises profound liberation for both the accuser and the accused.” – Thandie Newton, actor, activist and V-Day Board Member
“The Apology is profound and theatrical, literary and sometimes funny, as all of Eve Ensler’s work is, and it goes without saying, it’s courageous, transformative, and yes—healing.” – Anne Lamott, bestselling author of Almost Everything and Imperfect Birds
“Eve Ensler’s The Apology is both an excoriation and an act of startling forgiveness. Even as it depicts jaw-dropping cruelties, it probes the complexities and layers that underlie what could, in lesser hands, appear as the opaque surface of pure evil. Ensler unflinchingly increases our understanding of the human experience even at its darkest, which is quite possibly a writer’s, any writer’s, most significant contribution.” – Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
“In this triumph of artistry and empathy, Eve Ensler leaves us with a transformative question: what if the words we most long to hear from another can be located within ourselves? Navigating the rocky rapids between intimacy and annihilation, contrition and forgiveness, autonomy and interdependence, this is a book like no other. Few will emerge unchanged.” – Naomi Klein, bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine
“This is one of the most original and profound books of the decade. For anyone who has ever been hurt by somebody they love, it will be deeply transformative. Twenty-five years ago, Eve Ensler transformed how women think about their bodies. With this book, she will change how all of us think about our souls.” – Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections
