Global Blues by Sukyung Huh: Translated with an Essay by Jihee Han

Sukyung Huh (1964-2018) is unafraid to write of what is. In her Global Blues, the extraordinary starts to become the ordinary we somehow have all in common. Though listed with a touch of irony, we find ourselves, for better or worse, in all scenes that are not familiar to our own experiences. In many cases, Global Blues disembodies self and image, nature and its groundedness, exploring terrains of defeat and despair. Through reading the poems, we can make voluntary exiles, othering ourselves as we reach out to the other, against the unilateral process of modernity rooted in the Western ‘center’ spreading out to homogenize and maintain the periphery. The intertwining of local and global void paradoxically conveys a gap in the world’s system of relationships, a system based on simulations and relentless maneuvers. Eventually, Global Blues lingers persistently in our minds, oscillating between expectation and frustration, entangling fact and fiction. Read more