WATCH: How People Are Failed by the Health Institutions Meant to Protect Them

Greenlight welcomes poet and author Emma Bolden for a virtual evening celebrating her new book, The Tiger and the Cage.

This exquisitely wrought debut memoir recounts Bolden’s lifelong struggle with chronic pain and endometriosis, while speaking more broadly to anyone who has been told “it’s all in your head.” Bolden uses her own experience as the starting point for a journey through the institutional misogyny of Western medicine—from a history of labeling women “hysterical” and parading them as curiosities to a lack of information on causes or cures for endometriosis despite more than a century of documented cases. Recounting botched surgeries and dire side effects from pharmaceuticals affecting her and countless others, Bolden speaks to the ways people are often failed by the official narratives of institutions meant to protect them.

Bolden is joined by acclaimed author of Ace Angela Chen for an incisive evening of reading and conversation.

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Founded in October 2009 by Rebecca Fitting and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, Greenlight Bookstore is an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. Combining the best traditions of the neighborhood bookstore with carefully curated, community-minded events, Greenlight has earned a reputation as a literary destination. Greenlight has continued to serve its community during the COVID-19 pandemic with a diverse array of virtual events, and has been inspired by the movements for racial justice across the country to engage in the work of becoming a more anti-racist company. Learn more at greenlightbookstore.com or check them out @greenlightbklyn.