Novelist, 1920s Hollywood screenwriter, half Chinese: why Winnifred Eaton gave herself a Japanese name, Onoto Watanna

Little is known about Chinese-Canadian writer Winnifred Eaton Babcock Reeve, who is said to have been the first novelist of Asian descent in North America

Early on in her career, she pretended to be Japanese to sell stories. In the 1920s she was a Hollywood screenwriter, and later wrote some harshly realist novels

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Winnifred Eaton in 1903. Eaton was a Chinese-Canadian writer and said to have been the first novelist of Asian descent in North America. For years, though, the world knew her as Onoto Watanna – a Japanese nom de plume. Photo: Hathitrust Digital Library

Bernice Chanin Vancouver

Published: 4:15am, 22 Jul 2023Updated: 8:07am, 23 Jul 2023

Corrected [8:04am, 23 Jul, 2023]

[8:04am, 23 Jul, 2023]
The full name Eaton was known by following her second marriage was Winnifred Eaton Babcock Reeve.

Winnifred Eaton Babcock Reeve’s story is nothing short of remarkable.

Born to a Chinese mother and English father in Montreal, Canada in 1875, the writer – said to be the first novelist of Asian descent in North America – also penned Hollywood scripts long before women had any presence in the male-dominated industry.

From July 27 to 29, around 40 academics from around the world, including Japan and Hong Kong, will descend on Calgary, Alberta to discuss the extraordinary life of Winnifred Eaton – known to her readers as Onoto Watanna and in Hollywood as Winnifred Reeve.

Despite there being an extensive archive of her work, memoirs, interviews and biographies, not many Canadians and Americans know about Eaton, which is why those in charge of the coming conference plan to shine a spotlight on this creative Chinese-Canadian.

A portrait of a young Winnifred Eaton in formal attire. Photo: University of Calgary

Some of Eaton’s descendants will also attend the three-day conference to learn new things about their forebear who, by the time she died in 1954, had written 18 bestselling novels, 80 stories and more than 60 works of non-fiction and poetry; and written and edited 50 film scripts.

Eaton, who in black-and-white photographs looked more Caucasian than Eurasian, had two marriages and lived in both Canada and the United States. Early on in her career, she made the controversial decision to pretend to be Japanese in the hopes of getting noticed.