In an exclusive and revelatory 4-part story for Elle UK, Emma interviews her latest Our Shared Shelf book club choice The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler about her work and activism. The conversation will run for the next 4 days on the magazine’s official website, and we’ll be sharing it with you here, too.
PART 1. ‘A wild vagina journey.’
In this first part, Emma and Eve talk about the difficulties of bringing The Vagina Monologues to publication and the activism it helped create.
Emma Watson: Hello lovely Eve, how are you?
Eve Ensler: You know, this is One Billion Rising season, so it’s been crazy.
Emma Watson: Ok, so I’ve written out my questions for you because I’m nerdy like that.
Eve Ensler: I do love your book club, I think it’s amazing.
Emma Watson: It’s my favourite project, I just love it, it’s so cool. Here’s where I’ll start: I went on holiday last week and I read Insecure At Last, which I hadn’t read before, which I just loved. Hats off to you, it’s so brave to make your personal political. Last year I also read In the Body Of The World, and then we’ve obviously been doing The Vagina Monologues. Do you have a favourite of your pieces of work?
Eve Ensler: No. They’re all so different, and it depends – people always used to ask me about The Vagina Monologues, “what’s your favourite monologue?” and it’s such a cruel question, like choosing one woman over another woman. I think sometimes you have days when you’re more drawn towards one book or one monologue than you are to others.