“In <i>Before the Fire Dogs Steal the Sun</i>, Baik balances research and storytelling with expert precision. Her beautifully crystalline prose illuminates the historical depth of intimate lives and the personal stakes of social experiences. Sentence after sentence, insight after insight, this elegy grips the reader and holds them in communal embrace until the very last word. A monumental achievement.”—Vinh Nguyen, author of, <i>The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse</i><br /><br />“Although rooted in Baik’s deeply personal experience—her mother’s painful break from reality after her husband’s death—reading this book felt like looking into a mirror. A gift to all of us shaped by militarized diasporas and the unfinished business of war, <i>Before the Fire Dogs Steal the Sun: An Elegy</i> moves between memoir and cultural analysis with power and grace. In the wake of profound loss, Baik pieces together a diasporic family history from makeshift archives scattered across borders and time, offering a speculative yet searingly candid account. This is a brilliant work—moving, engaging, and quietly radical. It will stay with you, and in the best way, restore you.”—Jinah Kim, author of, <i>Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas</i>
An End Is a Return to the Beginning 1
I. Father
The Eye of the Storm 23
The Wind Phone 45
II. Mother
A Cooking Lesson
The Diasporic Family Album
III. The Memory Keeper
Grief and Return
Posthumous Translation
IV. Invocation
A Protection Spell / Cristiana Kyung-hye Baik
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Credits