Dictee [Paperback]

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520231120 | ISBN-13: 978-0520231122 | Publication Date: September 28, 2001 | Edition: 1st Calif. pbk. ed

Dictee is the best-known work of the versatile and important artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982). 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, Cha's 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's work of poetry Dictee has received due critical attention (most recently from poet Juliana Spahr), her artist's books and other art works are less well known. Dictee will be re-released this October, along with The Dream of the Audience, a book documenting a travelling exhibition dedicated to the Korean-American Cha (1951-1982). In addition to excellent reproductions of Cha's handbound texts and images from her performances, the book includes essays by Berkeley Art museum curator Constance Lewallen, Whitney Museum of American Art curator Lawrence Rinder and critic and filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Reads like a secret dossier, stuffed with epistles and pictures, religion and dreams." -- Village Voice Literary Supplement

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 179 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1st Calif. pbk. ed edition (September 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520231120
• ISBN-13: 978-0520231122
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly nuanced, challenging, powerful., March 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dictee (Paperback)

This book baffles me but I can't help coming back to it time and again. It makes my brain turn flip-flops and, in doing so, realize faculties of thought, imagination and empathy that I never knew existed. Cha's work is amazing, original, extremely insightful and interesting, bleak, defiant. As college reading lists "discover" the works of Asian American women writers (many of whom, like Amy Tan, are immensely popular but regularly problematized by scholars in Asian American studies), Theresa Cha must not be overlooked or forgotten.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moments of Clarity, May 8, 2001

By 

Ken (Tucson, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dictee (Paperback)

The poet Charles Simic says, "Long drawn-out works conflict with the fragmentariness of our consciousness. What is recorded in a notebook is the sense of the unique and unrepeatable experience of the rare moments of clarity."

Dictee is this kind of book, a collection in nine parts of mixed writing styles including short passages in French and English, jounal entries, stories and dreams, even a handwritten letter. And more. Theresa Hak Cha's book, which has been callled both fiction and autobiography, also contains photographs, film stills, diagrams, and other black and white images. "Electic" only begins to describe the structure and style of Dictee.

Cha's writing doesn't come without risk--Dictee seems thematically and structurally difficult. But it's with this style, actually a process-of-writing style, that Cha shows us how her mind works. It's in her "fragmentariness" that elements of profound meaning rise to the surface, what Simic meant by "rare moments of clarity." Cha's imagination on the page, her explorations into language and poetic lyricism--with connections to nationalist and feminist themes--help us feel her genuine struggle with Korea as a victim of the Cold War. This message is her legacy; it's a kind of Presence in her writing. And we sense her triumph.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cha's "Dictee" a Journey Worth Taking, December 17, 2002

By 

Linda L. Branch (Perkasie, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dictee (Paperback)

The autobiographical work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, "Dictee," is both a challenging and unique experience to read. Her provocative blend of prose, poetry, narrative and historical pieces, among other genres, reveal a voice that purposely avoids a "typical" patriarchial discourse that is refreshing although disarming. Her words, contextually somewhat difficult for the (this) reader not previously aware of the complexities and truths of Korean history (both in Korea and America), are at once powerful and insightful...poetic, yet raw. Cha is able to use her gift to offer a glimpse into one woman's history and journey; one that ended much too soon on this planet for this talented artist.