author

Mae M. Franking

b. 1890

A young American woman’s memoir became an unusually vivid account of love, marriage, and life across cultures in the early 20th century. Her story, shaped for publication with Katherine Anne Porter, still stands out for its personal view of China and an interracial marriage that challenged the norms of its time.

1 Audiobook

My Chinese Marriage

My Chinese Marriage

by Mae M. Franking, Katherine Anne Porter

About the author

Born in 1890, Mae M. Franking is best known for My Chinese Marriage, a memoir published in 1921. The book tells the story of her relationship with Tiam Hock Franking, a Chinese student she met while studying in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and follows their life together as an interracial couple at a time when such marriages faced strong social and legal barriers.

Available records about her are limited, but sources connected with later editions of the book describe her as Mae Munro Watkins Franking and show that Katherine Anne Porter helped shape the manuscript for publication. That gives the memoir an unusual place in literary history: it is both a personal life story and an early published work tied to a major American writer.

What makes her writing memorable is its direct, lived perspective. Rather than offering a distant travel narrative, My Chinese Marriage presents family life, cultural adjustment, and the emotional reality of building a home between worlds.