Edith and Winnifred Eaton: Chinatown Missions and Japanese Romances

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Edith and Winnifred Eaton: Chinatown Missions and Japanese Romances
Abstract
Montreal-raised daughters of a British father and a Chinese mother, Edith and Winnifred Eaton pursued wildly different literary paths. While Edith Maud Eaton (1865-1914) wrote stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the pen name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred Eaton presented herself as a Japanese American and published Japanese romance novels in English under the name Onoto Watanna. Critics usually contrast Edith's "authentic" representations of Chinese North Americans versus Winnifred's "phony" portrayals of Japanese characters and settings. However, the author argues that Edith as much as Winnifred constructed her persona along with her pen name, and suggests that both authors wrote through the filter of contemporary ethnographic discourse on the Far East and also wrote for readers hungry for "authentic" insight into the morals, manners, and mentality of an exotic other.
Place
Urbana, IL
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Date
2002
Language
en
Citation
Ferens, Dominika. Edith and Winnifred Eaton: Chinatown Missions and Japanese Romances. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
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