Product Description

Born to a British father and a Chinese mother, Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) decided to capitalize on her exotic appearance while protecting herself from Americans' scorn of Chinese: she "became" Japanese, assuming the pen name Onoto Watanna. While her eldest sister (now acknowledged as the mother of Asian American fiction), was writing stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred's Japanese romance novels and stories became all the rage, thrusting her into the glittering world of New York literati. Diana Birchall chronicles the sometimes desperate, sometimes canny, and always bold course of her grandmother's amazing professional career as a journalist, a bestselling novelist, and a Hollywood scriptwriting protegee of Carl Laemmle at Universal Studios.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #905440 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-22
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .93 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

From Library Journal
Birchall tells the story of her colorful half-caste "bad grandma," Winnifred Eaton (1875-1952), who used the pen name Onoto Watanna as part of her ongoing charade as half-Japanese. Born in Montreal, the eighth of 14 children of an English artist father and a Chinese mother, Eaton authored 17 novels (including A Japanese Nightingale, The Heart of Hyacinth, and Miss Num of Japan) and numerous short stories, mostly with Japanese characters and themes. Acknowledged by scholars as a pioneer Asian American writer and as possibly the first Asian American novelist, Eaton was rediscovered as a writer in the 1970s. Birchall, a story analyst at Warner Brothers and author of two historical novels, portrays a curiously fascinating and remarkably bold woman, best-selling novelist, and Hollywood scriptwriter who lived a life as intermingled with fact and fantasy, reality and fiction, as her novels and short stories. Because Birchall was three when she last saw her grandmother, her portrait has a sense of detachment that the reader can feel but will not find distracting. Recommended for both academic and public libraries. Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap
"This finely crafted, meticulously researched, and very witty biography of Onoto Watanna/Winnifred Eaton makes the fascinating novelist come alive in all her human contradictions. Birchall's prose reflects her grandmother's gift for spellbinding narrative, mirroring the disarming charm, grace, energy, and vigor of Watanna--as woman and writer--herself. Poignant and moving, but always alive to humor, Birchall's riveting biography is a timely gift to students of Asian American literature, filling a century-long void in Eaton scholarship." -- Samina Najmi, Wheaton College

"Immensely enjoyable reading. . . . Eaton is a fascinating woman, both in her personal and professional choices and in the many lives she led and the many worlds she inhabited. This is a story that must be told, and Birchall is the ideal person for the job. She tells Eaton's story with affection, energy, and sensitivity to her subject's unique voice and personality." -- Eve Oishi, California State University at Long Beach