This is Becoming Wise, an inquiry into the mystery and art of living.

I'm Krista Tippett.

Eve Ensler is best known for her play The Vagina Monologues,

which has become a global force in the face of violence against women and girls.

But she herself also had a violent childhood.

And her lifelong work with the difficult, redemptive matter of female physicality

came into relief in a new way when she was diagnosed with cancer in her 50s.

So in 2010, you are helping create something called the City of Joy,

and you discover that you have a huge malignant tumor, right, in your uterus.

And you have these, they said cancer, you said that cancer landed in your body, right? In your uterus. And you had these, they said cancer,

you said that cancer landed in your body

just as Congo

had landed you in the body of the world.

And there's something in your story,

and I know you know this,

which is so iconic for this great contradiction of, especially of modern women, I think, Western women maybe.

How, on the one hand, attentive to our bodies and obsessed by our bodies we can be and yet not inhabit them and not even know that we're not inhabiting them. And for you,

this crusader going around the world with V-Day to make that discovery is just, you know, it's

remarkable. Well, you know, I think everything's in stages and is incremental.

I think my whole life, if I look at the body of literature and theater pieces I've written,

I think it's been this huge journey and attempt to get back into my body.

I mean, every play on some level.

...