Hardly War, Don Mee Choi's UK debut, defies categorisation. Using artefacts 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.
‘Choi’s use of hybrid forms – poetry, memoir, opera libretto, images and artefacts from her father’s career as a photojournalist in the Korean and Vietnam Wars – lets her explore themes of injustice and empire, history and identity, sifting through the detritus of family, translation, propaganda, and dislocation.’ Kathleen Rooney, The New York Times Sunday Book Review