Mrs. Spring Fragrance

Edith Maude Eaton (1865–1914), who took the pen name Sui Sin Far, was the first Asian American, man or woman, to publish fiction. The daughter of a Chinese mother & an English father, Eaton began publishing articles about Montreal’s Chinese Canadian community in English-language newspapers at twenty-five. 

At thirty, she moved to the United States & began writing stories that countered racist portrayals of the Chinese, insisting that “only when the whole world becomes as one family will human beings be able to see clearly & hear distinctly.” Eaton would devote the rest of her career to promoting the fair & equal treatment of Chinese immigrants & protesting against the United States’ anti-Chinese laws & its practice of separating families. She published her collected short stories as Mrs. Spring Fragrance & Other Writings in 1912.