Dictee

About this book

Dictee is the best-known work of the versatile and important artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (19511982). A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self Dictee is the story of several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon Joan of Arc Demeter and Persephone Chas mother Hyung Soon Huo (a Korean born in Manchuria to first-generation Korean exiles) and Cha herself. The element that unites these women is suffering and the transcendence of suffering. The book is divided into nine parts structured around the Greek Muses. Cha deploys a variety of texts documents images and forms of address and inquiry to explore issues of dislocation and the fragmentation of memory. The result is a work of power complexity and enduring beauty.