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DMZ Colony

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( 1,278 ratings, 215 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi is a dynamic exploration of Korea's traumatic postcolonial history through a blend of poetry, prose, photography, and drawings. Structured in eight acts, it employs translation as a poetic tool to bridge historical and linguistic divides, reflecting on the intertwined histories of South Korea and the United States. The work serves as both a personal and political reckoning, embodying resistance against imperial narratives while offering hope for humanity.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$3999
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for readers interested in experimental poetry, postcolonial studies, Korean and Korean-American cultural narratives, and those drawn to politically charged art forms. It appeals to an audience open to hybrid literary formats and complex explorations of history and memory.

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A powerful work of cultural memory that recovers voices from Korea's heartbreakingly violent postcolonial history.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Finalist for the US National Book Award for Poetry 2020

A powerful work of cultural memory that recovers voices from Korea's heartbreakingly violent postcolonial history.

Woven from poems, prose, photographs, and drawings, Don Mee Choi's DMZ Colony is a tour de force of personal and political reckoning set over eight acts. Evincing the power of translation as a poetic device to navigate historical and linguistic borders, it explores Edward Said's notion of "the intertwined and overlapping histories" in regards to South Korea and the United States through innovative deployments of voice, story, and poetics. Like its sister book, Hardly War, it holds history accountable, its very presence a resistance to empire and a hope in humankind.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Critics acclaim Choi's hybrid form, noting how it captures the enormity of war and history while acknowledging their elusiveness, with The New York Times Sunday Book Review highlighting her nuanced perspective. Publishers Weekly praises the playful yet complex style that innovatively challenges traditional views of the Korean War, situating Choi alongside influential Korean-American experimental poets. Her work is considered a bold and inventive continuation of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's legacy, reflecting the modern global media experience.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781940696959

Publisher: Wave Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 21 May 2020

Country: United States

Imprint: Wave Books

Illustration: 1 color illustration, B&W illustrations throughout

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 171.0mm

Height: 228.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 152

About the Author

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016), The Morning News Is Exciting (Action Books, 2010), and several chapbooks and pamphlets of poems and essays. She has received a Whiting Award, Lannan Literary Fellowship, Lucien Stryk Translation Prize, and DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellowship. She has translated several collections of Kim Hyesoon's poetry, including Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018), which received the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

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    Hardly War, Don Mee Choi's major second collection, defies history, national identity, and militarism. Using artifacts from Choi's father, a professional photographer during the Korean and Vietnam wars, she combines memoir, image, and opera to explore her paternal relationship and heritage. Here, poetry and geopolitics are inseparable twin sisters, conjoined to the belly of a warring empire. Like fried potato...
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    Elegiac and haunting, Mirror Nation by Don Mee Choi completes the KOR-US trilogy, along with Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016) and the National Book Award-winning DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020). Much like Proust's madeleine, a spinning Mercedes Benz ring outside Choi's Berlin window prompts a memory of her father on the Glienicker Bridge between Berlin and Potsdam, which in turn...
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