Re “What Mandela Lost” (Sunday Review, July 8):
Reading Nelson Mandela’s letters concerning the need to maintain the fight for human dignity, and the power of writing to provide solace in times of distress, was edifying. So I was confounded by Tayari Jones’s suggestion that Mandela’s letters would “rock the pedestal” on which he is placed.
Mandela’s honest efforts to create and maintain family memories portray him in his most vulnerable humanness. Nothing remains the same in our remembering, because memories, like stars, endure and, contrary to the cosmos, brighten in the remembering.
To know more of Mandela’s humanity, through his letters, especially to his daughter Zenani, strengthens and elevates Mandela’s pedestal.
DEANIE ROWAN BLANK
HAMDEN, CONN.
The writer is a poet.