Edith and Winnifred Eaton
Subtitle: Chinatown missions and Japanese romances
By: Dominika Ferens.
Series: The Asian American experience
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 221
Subjects: Sui Sin Far, 1865-1914.; Eaton, Winnifred, 1879-1954.; Novelists, Canadian -- 20th century -- Biography.; Eurasians -- United States -- Biography.; Sisters -- North America -- Biography.; Canadian fiction -- Asian influences.; Asian American women -- Biography.; Eurasians -- Canada -- Biography.; Asians in literature.; Asia -- In literature.
Genres: Biography.
Other titles: Edith & Winnifred Eaton
Description: "Daughters of a British father and a Chinese mother, Edith and Winnifred Eaton pursued wildly different paths. While Edith wrote stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the pen name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred presented herself as Japanese American and published Japanese romance novels in English under the name Onoto Watanna.

In this reappraisal of the vision and accomplishments of the Eaton sisters, Dominika Ferens departs boldly from the dichotomy that has informed most commentary on them: Edith's "authentic" representations of the Chinese North Americans versus Winnifred's "phony" portrayals of Japanese characters and settings.".

"Arguing that Edith as much as Winnifred constructed her persona along with her pen name, Ferens considers the fiction of both Eaton sisters as ethnography. Edith and Winnifred Eaton 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."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [210]-216) and index.