A Half Caste and Other Writings

What did it mean to be a ˜half caste in early twentieth-century North America? Winnifred Eaton lived that experience and, as Onoto Watanna, she wrote about it. This collection of her short works--some newly discovered, others long awaited by scholars--ranges from breathless magazine romance to story melodrama and provides a riveting introduction to a unique literary personality.? — Diana Birchall, author of Onoto Watanna: The Story of Winnifred Eaton_x000B_Onoto Watanna (1875–1954) was born Winnifred Eaton, the daughter of a British father and a Chinese mother. The first novelist of Chinese descent to be published in the United States, she became? Japanese to escape Americans scorn of the Chinese and to capitalize on their fascination with things Japanese. The earliest essay here, A Half Caste,? appeared in 1898, a year before Miss Nume: A Japanese-American Romance, the first of her best-selling novels. The last story, Elspeth,? appeared in 1923._x000B_Of Watannas numerous shorter works, this volume includes nineteen--thirteen stories and six essays — intended to show the scope and versatility of her writing. While some of Watannas fictional characters will remind todays readers of the delicate but tragic Madame Butterfly, others foreshadow such types as the trickster in Maxine Hong Kingstons Tripmaster Monkey (a novel in which Onoto Watanna makes a cameo appearance). Watannas characters are always capable, clever, and inventive--molded in the authors own image.