A revolutionary woman for her time and an enormously creative writer, Emily Hahn broke all of the rules of the 1920s, including by traveling the country dressed as a boy, working for the Red Cross in Belgium, being the concubine to a Shanghai poet, using opium, and having a child out of wedlock. Hahn kept on fighting against the stereotype of female docility that characterized the Victorian era and was an advocate for the environment until her death at age ninety-two.
Emily Hahn (1905โ1997) was the author of fifty-two books, as well as one hundred eighty-one articles and short stories for theย New Yorkerย from 1929 to 1996. She was a staff writer for the magazine for forty-seven years. She wrote novels, short stories, personal essays, reportage, poetry, history and biography, natural history and zoology, cookbooks, humor, travel, childrenโs books, and four autobiographical narratives:ย China to Meย (1944), a literary exploration of her trip to China;ย Hong Kong Holidayย (1946);ย England to Meย (1949); andย Kissing Cousinsย (1958).
The fifth of six children, she was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and later became the first woman to earn a degree in mining engineering at the University of Wisconsin. She did graduate work at both Columbia and Oxford before leaving for Shanghai. She lived in China for eight years. Her wartime affair with Charles Boxer, Britainโs chief spy in preโWorld War II Hong Kong, evolved into a loving and unconventional marriage that lasted fifty-two years and produced two daughters. Emily Hahnโs final published piece in theย New Yorkerย appeared in 1996, shortly before her death.