Restoring Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's original vision and intentions for Dictee, a foundational 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 as an art object in its authentic form, featuring:
The original cover
High-quality reproductions of the interior layout
Dictee 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.
This dynamic autobiography:
Structures the story in nine parts around the Greek Muses
Deploys a variety of texts, documents, images, and forms of address and inquiry
Links the 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.
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