In her radical exploration of cultural and personal identity, the writer and artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha sought the roots of language before it is born on the tip of the tongue.” Her first book, the highly original postmodern text Dictee, published in 1982, is considered a classic work of autobiography and is widely read by students internationally. This stunning selection of her uncollected and hitherto unpublished work at last brings together Cha's writings and text-based pieces with images spanning the period between 1976 and 1980. The volume includes two related poem sequences, Exilée and Temps Morts, major texts incorporating autobiographical elements as well as themes of language, memory, displacement, and alienation--issues that continue to resonate with artists decades after Cha explored them. These moving works give a fuller view of the creative nexus out of which Dictee emerged and attest to the singular literary achievement of a major figure in late-twentieth century art. Copub: Berkeley Art Museum

Exilée and Temps Morts: Selected Works

Literature & Fiction

Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung

History & Criticism

University of California Press

Dictée is the best-known work of the versatile and important Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self, Dictée 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 elements that unite these women are 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.

Dictee

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Newly restored, this version of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s masterpiece honors the author's original intentions and vision for the book. Originally published in 1982, Dictee is a classic of modern Asian American literature.\nDictee is the best-known work of the multidisciplinary Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.\nThis 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.\nThis 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.

Literary

In her radical exploration of cultural and personal identity, the writer and artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha sought “the roots of language before it is born on the tip of the tongue.” Her first book, the highly original postmodern text Dictee, is now an internationally studied work of autobiography. This volume, spanning the period between 1976 and 1982, brings together Cha’s previously uncollected writings and text-based pieces with images. Exilee and Temps Morts are two related poem sequences that explore themes of language, memory, displacement, and alienation—issues that continue to resonate with artists today. Back in print with a new cover, this stunning selection of Cha’s works gives readers a fuller view of a major figure in late twentieth-century art.\nCopublished by Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive\nFrom the Back Cover\n"Mastery over language that was borrowed, that was not her mother tongue, enabled Theresa Hak Kyung Cha to empathize with her viewer (her distant audience) as powerfully as any artist I know. In Exilee and Temps Morts I listen with fascination as her tongue exercises furtively and nimbly, convincing me that Cha would have been the exemplary artist of identity had she lived another ten years."—Byron Kim, artist\n"Conceptual, poetic, visual, the writings of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha are radical and subtle responses to the artistic context of their time and reveal powerful areas of exploration to readers. Like few other contemporary collections, this book opens up new horizons in literature, art history, film theory, and linguistics, emphasizing the originality of a unique body of work that belongs both to history and to the present."—Elvan Zabunyan, author of Black Is a Color\n"Since its publication within weeks of her premature death, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictée has attracted academic, feminist, literary, and cult followings. But despite the passion that erupts through its surface, it is in many ways an austere book. It withholds something—and purposefully so. This unexpected new collection of Cha's other, previously uncollected writings/inscribings offers something gentler, more intimate—and, though not less alienated, perhaps, the Cha we encounter in Exilee and Temps Morts is more playful. The works collected here resonate with vivacity and the luminous presence that was, and remains, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha."—Lyn Hejinian, author of A Border Comedy

Exilee and Temps Morts: Selected Works

Arts & Photography

Dictée is the best-known work of the versatile and important Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self, Dictée 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 elements that unite these women are 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.

Dictée

Poetry

Tanam Press

Apparatus

Performing Arts

Tanam Pr

Cha's groundbreaking image/text work back in print

Contemporary

Third Women Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Exilée and Temps Morts: Selected Works

Dictee

Dictee

Dictee

Exilee and Temps Morts: Selected Works

Dictée

Apparatus

Dictee