What is immediately evident in the small sampling presented here is the profoundly interdisciplinary nature of Cha’s art and writing, an approach that will be familiar to readers of DICTEE. It was in Europe that she immersed herself in a number of intellectual and aesthetic currents- French film theory, feminism, and an Icelandic version of Fluxus known as S¥M-that became centrally important in her subsequent work. The poems and many of the visual works were probably created during and shortly after her highly productive 1976 sojourn in Paris, during which she studied at the Centre d’Etudes du Cinema Americaine à Paris. This issue of Fence presents a group of Cha’s poems, published for the first time, as well as photographs of several little-known works in other media. Deeply informed by Confucianism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Taoism, as well as by postmodern theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, Monique Wittig, and Jacques Derrida, Cha’s works constitute a pioneering exploration into the nuances of intertextual, omnimodal, multicultural identity.

This state of affairs would not have been anathema to Cha herself, who in virtually every work she made sought release from the limitations of the individual ego.

Yet so little is generally known about Cha or about her extraordinary literary and artistic oeuvre that the author of DICTEE may seem to most readers to be elusive or nearly anonymous. Through its appeal to the senses, to memory, and to a multiplicity of resonant cultural touchstones, DICTEE takes the reader on a journey that has left many with a feeling of almost alchemical transformation. It is one of those rare works of art that have the power literally to alter people’s lives. This marvelously unique work-which combines poetry, calligraphy and other manuscripts, found texts, diagrams, and photographs- has become a staple of many university literature and postcolonial studies courses. Most people who know of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha know only her remarkable book, DICTEE, published in 1982 by Tanam Press.

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha