Dictee (2nd Edition)

- Blurb -

This restored edition reflects Theresa Hak Kyung Cha' s original vision and intentions for Dictee, a foundational and unparalleled text of modern Asian American literature. Dictee is the best-known work of the multidisciplinary Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. This restored edition, produced in partnership with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), reflects Cha' s original vision for the book. Featuring the original cover and high-quality reproductions of the interior layout as Cha intended them, this version of Dictee faithfully renders the book as an art object in its authentic form. A formative text of modern Asian American literature, Dictee is a dynamic autobiography that tells the story of several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon, Joan of Arc, Demeter and Persephone, Cha' s mother Hyung Soon Huo (a Korean born in Manchuria to first-generation Korean exiles), and Cha herself. Cha' s work manifests in nine parts structured around the Greek Muses. Deploying a variety of texts, documents, images, and forms of address and inquiry, Cha links these women' s stories to explore the trauma of dislocation and the fragmentation of memory it causes. The result is an enduringly powerful, beautiful, unparalleled work.