In this act of willful writing, by turns lyrical and intense, Helene Cixous brings Osip Mandelstam and Nelson Mandela together through the common first syllables of their names, the dates of their respective exiles, and the women, Nadezhda Mandelstam and Winnie-Zami Mandela, who disclose and restore their partners' lives through language. For Cixous, politics is approached most openly and freely through poetry; social change cannot exist without linguistic...