Manna: for the Mandelstams for the Mandelas
by Helen Cixous
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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 change. Her poetic language show more moderates the historical, political, and personal tales of Mandelstam and Mandela to produce a new sense of individual tragedy and cultural possibility. This intriguing and beautiful book is an act of emancipation as it releases its subjects - along with its readers - from the restricted language of constraint and exile. Long distinguished among creative writers in France and as an intellectual in the United States, Helene Cixous is the author of more than thirty volumes, many of which are now available in English-language translation. She has been highly praised in France and elsewhere by such renowned intellectuals as Jacques Derrida. show lessTags
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138+ Works 2,398 Members
Born in 1937 in Algeria, Helene Cixous came to Paris, where she is currently professor of English, in 1955. After a dissertation on James Joyce, The Exile of James Joyce (1968), she began to publish novels, critical essays, and plays, most notably Le Portrait de Dora (1976), a feminist retelling of a Freudian case history. Jacques Derrida has show more named Helene Cixous the greatest contemporary French writer. Cixous has been an active participant in the development of literary criticism after structuralism and has been a leading figure in the French feminist movement. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Manna: for the Mandelstams for the Mandelas
- Original publication date
- 1994
- People/Characters
- Nadezhda Mandelstam; Winnie Mandela; Osip Mandelstam; Nelson Mandela
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 843.914 — Literature & rhetoric French Literature French fiction 1900- 20th Century 1945-1999
- LCC
- PQ2663 .I9 .M3613 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature Modern literature 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 26
- Popularity
- 1,038,348
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
