Mrs. Spring Fragrance: and Other Writings

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A rediscovered classic of linked short stories set in San Francisco's Chinatown, portraying Chinese Americans as they fall in love, encounter racism, and wrestle with their new, hyphenated identities--a century before writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Set in early twentieth-century Chinatown, Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings is the story of Chinese men and women living in the United States as they wrestle with prejudice and forced detention; choose to become wholly Americanized or stay true to their cultural heritage; meet both kind and predatory Americans; and find love, purpose, and understanding within their families. By turns ironic and heart-rending, these stories are windows into the lives of everyday people in an unforgiving, often racist city who find solidarity and hope in the most unexpected places.

Author Bio

Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914), who took the pen name Sui Sin Far, is recognized as the first Asian American published fiction writer. The daughter of a Chinese mother and an English father, she lived in England until age seven, when her family moved to Montreal. By twenty-five, Eaton was publishing articles about Montreal's Chinese American community in English-language newspapers. At thirty, she began to assert her identity as a Chinese American writer (despite her ability to "pass" as white), writing stories about Chinese Americans at a time when the United States Congress maintained the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigration to the United States.