The Stories of Sui Sin Far is a compilation of short stories written by Sui Sin Far, the pen name of Edith Maude Eaton. Sui Sin Far is actually the Cantonese name for a popular flower in China, the narcissus. Far was born in England to an English merchant who had met his wife during a trip to China, and was one of fourteen children. While she was still in school, her family first moved to the New York and then to Montreal, but her family came upon a difficult time economically; Far decided to drop out of school and work to help sustain their very large family. However, this challenge did not stop her (and her younger sister) from learning in their home and eventually becoming successful authors.
Far is well known for writing about the Chinese in America, and what it’s like to be a Chinese American. First, Eaton’s writing were published in newspapers locally around Montreal, and soon she left Canada for the United States, where she kept on writing and continued to express her Chinese heritage. Her work happened to coincide with the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act, which was a strict immigration law that banned Chinese people from entering the U.S. during the late 1890s. After having experienced the hate and prejudice against the Chinese in America, Far continued to write many newspaper articles, as well as short stories for her first collection of fictional works that draws from her experiences as a Chinese American woman in the U.S.
