This image is the cover for the book A Japanese Blossom, Classics To Go

A Japanese Blossom, Classics To Go

Excerpt: "The children sat in a little semi-circle about their grandmother, listening intently as she read to them the last letter from their father in America. Ever since they could remember, his business as a tea merchant had taken him away from Japan on long visits to the foreign countries. His latest absence had continued for three years now, and little Juji—born a short time after his departure—had never seen him As the grandmother finished the letter, the children instinctively looked first of all at Juji, sitting there in placid indifference, stolidly sucking his thumb. Juji had ceased to be the baby of the Kurukawa family. Afar off in America a new, strange baby had been born, and had taken the place of Juji, just as its mother one year before had taken the place of Juji’s mother, who was dead."

Otono Watanna

Winnifred Eaton was a Canadian author and screenwriter. Although she was of Chinese-British ancestry, she published under the Japanese pseudonym Onoto Watanna and under the name Winifred Reeve. Eaton was only 14 when one of her stories was accepted for publication by a Montreal newspaper that had already published pieces by her sister. Before long she also had articles published in several popular magazines in the United States, notably the Ladies' Home Journal. Poster for Klaw & Erlanger's production of A Japanese Nightingale in New York in 1903. She left home at 17 to take a job as a stenographer for a Canadian newspaper in Kingston, Jamaica. She remained there for a year, then moved to Chicago, Illinois, where for a time she worked as a typist while continuing to write short stories. Eventually, her compositions were accepted by the prestigious Saturday Evening Post as well as by other popular periodicals. She moved from this to writing novels, capitalizing on her mixed ancestry to pass herself off as a Japanese American by the name of Onoto Watanna (which sounds Japanese but is not Japanese at all). Under this pseudonym, she published romance novels and short stories that were widely read throughout the United States.

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