“I desire to write an immortal book..."
Cita's newest free book by Sui Sin Far! Plus new web things, the Boston Art Book Fair, and spooky reads...
This month’s bulletin expands on a past Cita Canon writer —who is now the latest author in our catalog! Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914) was a journalist and fiction writer who worked across Canada, Jamaica, and the United States. Her story collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912) was the first book by a writer of Chinese heritage published in the US—and the only one until Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter (1959). In her reportage and short stories, Eaton wrote about the everyday lives of Chinese immigrants living in North America during a time of widespread, institutionally codified racism. She also wrote frank personal essays about her experiences as a biracial woman writer pursuing an independent life and career.
Though her contributions as a pioneer are significant, it is the strength of her writing and her bold approach to ever-relevant themes that makes it especially exciting to share Sui Sin Far’s work with you. Cita’s An Immortal Book: Selected Writings by Sui Sin Far brings together stories and essays from different points in her career. These pieces have romance, adventure, (sharp!) humor—and they tackle very real issues in ways that can feel surprisingly contemporary. As Victoria Namkung writes in the foreword:
“A master at developing characters and rendering place, [Sui Sin Far] grappled with themes of identity, race, class, gender, sexuality, and politics in ways that still resonate today.”
Thanks to our partnership with Digital Public Library of America, we’re thrilled to offer this in expanded digital formats (all FREE):
Downloadable EPUB
Downloadable & printable pdf
Web (on our brand new e-reader with expanded features—more details below!)
We also made a paperback edition! Eaton’s work is not widely available in print, and we hope that presenting this book across formats helps raise visibility for her writing and makes it accessible to all kinds of reading preferences. All revenue for print book sales directly supports our growing online library of free feminist books.
An Immortal Book Contributors
Victoria Namkung’s foreword provides an overview of Sui Sin Far’s life and career, drawing a direct line between things happening today (such as family separation practices at the US border) and the issues Eaton wrote about so boldly. Victoria is, like Eaton, a journalist and a fiction writer. Here are just a few highlights from her work:
These Violent Delights: Victoria's second novel follows a group of women as they come together to address years of abuse and coverups at an elite private girls' school. The book shifts perspectives as the characters navigate class, race, and personal history while building the solidarity needed to take on institutional harm.
"As Gen Z Asian Americans come of age, the vast majority feel they don’t belong" for The Guardian: A layered exploration of the experiences of young Asian Americans in the post-Trump, Covid era.
"‘I Didn’t Have the Language to Call It Racism’: An Interview with Nicole Chung" for Longreads: Victoria interviews writer and former The Toast editor Nicole Chung about her first memoir, All You Can Ever Know.
Shuhua Xiong, an interdisciplinary artist from Shanghai who is now based in Queens, captures so much about Sui Sin Far’s work in the cover image for An Immortal Book. The illustration feels abstract before reading, but as you take in different pieces from the book, aspects of the image become more concrete while the reflective quality of it continues to deepen. Here is more from Shuhua:
"Designing Text for the People Who Read It" for Material Design Blog: Illustrations complementing an examination of the science behind visual acuity, legibility, and text size.
"What We Look Like" for The New York Times: Shuhua contributed a self-portrait and reflection to a collection by 11 Asian-American artists thinking through their experiences of identity and culture.
The Canvas Project with Google: "Visualizing intangible emotions" through beautiful artworks that can be used as virtual meeting backdrops.
Rediscovering Sui Sin Far
Despite the considerable success Eaton achieved while she was alive, her work started to fade from public view after she died at age 49 in 1914. In a familiar pattern for many Cita authors, it wasn’t until several decades later that her work started to be revived and reappraised within academic circles. Today, more and more scholars are recognizing Sui Sin Far’s early contributions to feminist, anti-racist, transnationalist, and queer literature. Our book cites just some of the people who have nurtured and expanded Eaton’s legacy.
Lost Ladies of Lit (a very cool podcast with, obviously, tons of overlap with Cita’s mission) has done two episodes on Sui Sin Far. Both feature Victoria Namkung, and the latest includes Cita founder/design director Juliana Castro Varón and specifically highlights An Immortal Book!
Keep an eye out for news next month about a forthcoming reading guide, which will share more information and resources related to Sui Sin Far’s work, her fascinating family history, and the scholars and writers who have kept her legacy alive.
“I desire to write an immortal book, and now that I have learned from you that it is not necessary to acquire the ‘divine right of learning’ in order to accomplish things, I will begin the work without delay. My first subject will be ‘The Inferior Woman of America.’”
-Sui Sin Far, “The Inferior Woman”
Spoooooky Cita
Happy Halloween! Here are three free seasonal reads from Cita authors:
"A Wicked Voice" by Vernon Lee. A composer is haunted by a beautiful-but-evil voice from the past.
For those who get spooked easily but still enjoy a paranormal-adjacent tale: "The Three Souls of Ah So Nan" by Sui Sin Far. This story about grief and how we make sense of the balance of life and death contains some amazing imagery and solidarity between women (two staples of Eaton’s work).
An audio version of Edith Wharton's "Afterward" - one of her many ghost stories!
What Else?
We’ll be at the Boston Art Book Fair from November 10-12! Stop by to peruse Cita posters, books, apparel, and to chat about books and design! If you’d like to attend the preview party, you can use the code BOSABF23Exhibitor for $5 off the $35 ticket level. [RSVP here.]
We rolled out a new website last week, which includes the aforementioned e-reader and a new web shop! Many thanks to Fabián Ríos for helping us enhance the online reading experience.
Here’s a tour:
“It makes life so much pleasanter for yourself if you will smile at wrong and call it right, as many good people advise us to do. Everybody will love you then, and you will have all kinds of good things showered upon you. But the love of everybody is no temptation to me, and I have never had any desire to accumulate riches. All my ambition is to make myself useful, known, heard and admired by the wise and the brave.”
- Sui Sin Far, “The Persecution and Oppression of Me”
