Pearl S. Buck

Pearl Buck

(born June 26, 1892, Hillsboro, W.Va., U.S. — died March 6, 1973, Danby, Vt.) U.S. author. Buck was reared in China by her missionary parents and later taught in a Chinese university. Her first book to reach a wide audience was The Good Earth (1931, Pulitzer Prize), describing the struggles of a Chinese peasant and his slave wife. Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935) followed; the trilogy was published as The House of Earth (1935). Among her later works are short stories, novels (including five under the pseudonym John Sedges), and an autobiography. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

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Pearl S. Buck

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Biography:

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck

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Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (1892-1973), an American Nobel Prize-winning novelist, dedicated her booksand her personal activities to the improvement of relations between Americans and Asians.

Pearl Sydenstricker was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, on June 26, 1892. Her parents were Presbyterian missionaries, on furlough at the time of her birth from their activities in Chinkiang, China, although they soon returned there. During the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the family was forced to flee to Shanghai where, from 1907 to 1909, Buck attended boarding school. She moved to the United States the following year to enter Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia. After receiving a bachelor's degree in 1914, she took a teaching assistantship at the college but almost immediately returned to Chinkiang to care for her ailing mother.

In 1917 she married John Lossing Buck, an American agricultural specialist, with whom she settled in northern China. From 1921 until 1934 they lived chiefly in Nanking, where her husband taught agricultural theory. Buck occasionally taught English literature at several universities in the city, although most of her time was spent caring for her mentally disabled daughter and her infirm parents. In 1925 Buck returned to the United States to pursue graduate studies at Cornell University, where she received a master's degree in English in 1926. Back in Nanking the following year, she barely escaped a revolutionary army attack on the city. Meanwhile, because of her family's financial difficulties, she resolved to begin writing.

Novels Reflect Love of China

Buck's first novel, East Wind: West Wind (1930), a study of the conflict between the old China and the new, was followed by The Good Earth (1931), a profoundly affecting novel of Chinese peasant life, which won her a Pulitzer Prize. In 1933 Buck received a second master's degree, this time from Yale University, and in 1934 she took up permanent residence in the United States. In 1935 she divorced John Buck and married Richard J. Walsh, her publisher. Her extensive literary output - Sons (1932), The First Wife and Other Stories (1933), The Mother (1934), A House Divided (1935), and biographies of her father and mother, The Exile (1936) and Fighting Angel (1936) respectively - culminated in a 1938 Nobel Prize for literature, the first ever awarded to an American woman.

Humanitarian Efforts Occupy Later Life

In the next three decades, while continuing to write prolifically, Buck worked to promote racial tolerance and ease the plight of disadvantaged Asians, particularly children. In 1941 she founded the East and West Association to promote greater understanding among the world's peoples, and in 1949 she established Welcome House, an adoption agency for Asian-American children. She always had a special interest in children, and among her many books for them are The Water-Buffalo Children (1943), The Man Who Changed China: The Story of Sun Yat Sen (1953), The Beech Tree (1955), Christmas Miniature (1957), and The Christmas Ghost (1960). A steadfast supporter of multiracial families, in 1964 she organized the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, which supports Asian-American children and their mothers living abroad.

Although Buck's literary career embraced a variety of genres, almost all of her stories are set in China: the extremely popular novel Dragon Seed, its less popular sequel, The Promise (1943), and a raft of later novels, including Peony (1948), Letter from Peking (1957), and The New Year (1968). Among her other works, the highly acclaimed The Living Reed (1963) details the history of a Korean family during the late 19th and early 20th century. In the late 1940s Buck also authored a trilogy under the pseudonym John Sedges. The novels were later published as American Triptych (1958).

Lauded for Generous Spirit

Buck's play A Desert Incident was produced in New York City in 1959. Her ability as an essayist is exemplified by American Argument (with Eslanda Goode Robeson, 1949) and Friend to Friend (1958), "a candid exchange" with Philippine president Carlos P. Rómulo. Buck died of lung cancer in 1973, with more than one hundred written works to her credit. But even more significant, perhaps, were the over three hundred awards she received for her humanitarian efforts on behalf of improved race relations worldwide.

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck

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Buck, Pearl Sydenstricker (sī'dənstrĭk'ər), 1892-1973, American author, b. Hillsboro, W.Va., grad. Randolph-Macon Women's College, 1914. Pearl Buck was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature. Until 1924 she lived principally in China, where she, her parents, and her first husband, John Lossing Buck, were missionaries. She is famous for vivid, compassionate novels about life in China. The Good Earth (1931; Pulitzer Prize), considered her finest work, describes a Chinese peasant's rise to wealth and brilliantly conveys a sense of the daily life of ordinary Chinese people. Among her other novels of China are East Wind: West Wind (1930), Dragon Seed (1942), Imperial Woman (1956), and Mandala (1971). In 1935, she married her publisher Richard J. Walsh, president of the John Day Company. In 1949 she founded Welcome House, which provided care for the children of Asian women and American soldiers; the Pearl Buck Foundation of Philadelphia, to which she consigned most of her royalties, aids in the adoption of Amerasian children. Her more than 85 books include works for children, plays, biographies, and works of nonfiction, such as China As I See It (1970).

Bibliography

See her autobiography, My Several Worlds (1954); biography by T. F. Harris (2 vol., 1969-71).

Works:

Works by Pearl S. Buck

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(1892-1973)

1931	The Good Earth. This novel of Chinese peasant life, centered on the career of Wang Lung and his descendants, is the first volume of The House of Earth trilogy, which includes Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935). It wins both the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Medal for the most distinguished work of American fiction published between 1930 and 1935. The child of missionaries in China, Buck used her firsthand experiences to bring an unprecedented authenticity to her depiction of Chinese life, infused by a mythic, universalized tonality that produces what critic Malcolm Cowley describes as "a parable of the life of man, in his relation to the soil that sustains him."
1932	Sons. The sequel to The Good Earth (1931) and the second of The House of Earth trilogy follows the careers of Wang Lung's three sons and the further disruption of traditional Chinese society by modern forces.
1933	First Wife and Other Stories. Buck's first and best story collection concerns China and features "Wang Lung," the story that introduces her protagonist and the central incident of The Good Earth. Other stories depict the Communist revolution, the contrast between traditional Chinese values and Western ideas, and incidents from the tragic Yangtze flood of 1931.
1935	A House Divided. The concluding volume of the author's House of Earth trilogy, which had begun with The Good Earth (1931) and Sons (1932), chronicles the impact of modern Chinese history on the house of Wang. Neither sequel lives up to expectations generated by The Good Earth.
1942	Dragon Seed. Buck's propaganda novel concerns a small group of Chinese farmers near Nanking who try to hold on to their land in the face of the advancing Japanese troops. Family solidarity and devotion are tested by the horrors of modern warfare.
1946	Pavilion of Women. The novel concerns a Chinese lady who withdraws from married life and finds happiness in experiencing a spiritual love for an Italian priest. It is Buck's first attempt to document upper-class Chinese life.
1948	Peony. Buck's novel deals with racial conflict experienced by a Jewish family living in China.
1956	Imperial Woman. Buck's most accomplished later novel is this biographical reconstruction of the life of Tzu Hsi, the last empress of China.

Quotes By:

Pearl S. Buck

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Quotes:

"Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked."

"Man was lost if he went to a usurer, for the interest ran faster than a tiger upon him."

"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels."

"None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free."

"Love dies only when growth stops."

"Growth itself contains the germ of happiness."

See more famous quotes by Pearl S. Buck

Wikipedia:

Pearl S. Buck

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Pearl S. Buck
Pearl Buck, ca. 1932.
Born	June 26, 1892(1892-06-26) Hillsboro, West Virginia, United States
Died	March 6, 1973 (aged 80) Danby, Vermont, United States
Occupation	Writer, Missionary
Nationality	American
Subjects	China
Notable award(s)	Pulitzer Prize 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature 1938

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 — March 6, 1973) also known as Sai Zhen Zhu (Simplified Chinese: 赛珍珠; Pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū; Traditional Chinese: 賽珍珠), was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer who spent the majority of her life in China. In 1938, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces." With no irony, she has been described in China as a Chinese writer.^[1]

Contents

1 Humanitarian efforts
2 Life
3 Selected bibliography
4 Awards
5 Museums and Historic Houses
6 See also
7 References
8 Notes
9 External links

Humanitarian efforts

Many of Buck's life experiences and political views are described in her novels, short stories, fiction, children's stories, and the biographies of her parents entitled Fighting Angel (on Absalom) and The Exile (on Carrie). She wrote on a diverse variety of topics including women's rights, Asian cultures, immigration, adoption, missionary work, and war.

In 1949, outraged that existing adoption services considered Asian and mixed-race children unadoptable, Pearl established Welcome House, Inc., the first international, interracial adoption agency. In nearly five decades of work, Welcome House has placed over five thousand children. In 1964, to support children who were not eligible for adoption, Buck established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to "address poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asian countries." In 1965, she opened the Opportunity Center and Orphanage in South Korea, and later offices were opened in Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. When establishing Opportunity House, Buck said, "The purpose...is to publicize and eliminate injustices and prejudices suffered by children, who, because of their birth, are not permitted to enjoy the educational, social, economic and civil privileges normally accorded to children."^[2]

In the late 1960s, Pearl toured West Virginia to raise money to preserve her family farm in Hillsboro, WV. Today The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace is a historic house museum and cultural center.^[3] She hoped the house would "belong to everyone who cares to go there," and serve as a "gateway to new thoughts and dreams and ways of life."^[4]

Life

The Stulting House at the Pearl Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia

Pearl was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia to Caroline Stulting (1857-1921) and Absalom Sydenstricker. Her parents, Southern Presbyterian missionaries, traveled to China soon after their marriage on July 8, 1880, but returned to the United States for Pearl's birth. When Pearl was three months old, the family returned to China, to be stationed first in Zhenjiang (then often known as Jingjiang or, in the Postal Romanization, Tsingkiang).^[5] Pearl grew up bilingual, tutored in English by her mother and in classical Chinese by Mr. Kung.^[6]

Chinese man in Zhenjiang, c. 1900

The Boxer Uprising greatly affected Pearl and her family. Pearl's Chinese friends deserted her and her family, and there were not as many Western visitors as there once were.

In 1911, Pearl left China to attend Randolph-Macon Woman's College,^[7] graduating (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1914. From 1914 to 1933, she served as a Presbyterian missionary, but her views later became highly controversial in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, leading to her resignation.^{[citation needed]}

In 1914, Pearl returned to China. She married an agricultural economist missionary, John Lossing Buck, on May 13, 1917, and they moved to Suzhou, Anhui Province, a small town on the Huai River (not be confused with the better-known Suzhou in Jiangsu Province.). It is this region she described later in The Good Earth and Sons.

Nanjing University

From 1920 to 1933, Pearl and John made their home in Nanking (Nanjing), on the campus of Nanjing University, where both had teaching positions. Pearl taught English literature at the University of Nanjing and the Chinese National University. In 1920, the Bucks had a daughter, Carol, afflicted with phenylketonuria. In 1921, Pearl's mother died and shortly afterward her father moved in. In 1924, they left China for John's year of sabbatical and returned to the United States for a short time, during which Pearl earned her Masters degree from Cornell University. In 1925, the Bucks adopted Janice (later surnamed Walsh). That fall, they returned to China.^[8]

The tragedies and dislocations that Pearl suffered in the 1920s reached a climax in March 1927, during "Nanking Incident." In a confused battle involving elements of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops, Communist forces, and assorted warlords, several Westerners were murdered. Since Absalom was a missionary, the family decided to stay in Nanjing until the battle reached the city. When violence broke out, a poor Chinese family allowed them to hide in their hut while the family house was looted. The family spent a terrified day in hiding, after which they were rescued by American gunboats. They traveled to Shanghai and then sailed to Japan, where they spent the following year.^[9] They later moved back to Nanjing, though conditions remained dangerously unsettled.

In 1935, the Bucks were divorced. Richard Walsh, president of the John Day Company and her publisher, became Pearl Buck's second husband. The couple lived in Pennsylvania.^{[citation needed]}

Pearl S. Buck died of lung cancer on March 6, 1973 in Danby, Vermont and was interred in Green Hills Farm in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. She designed her own tombstone, which does not record her name in English; instead, the grave marker is inscribed with Chinese characters representing the name Pearl Sydenstricker.^[10]

Selected bibliography

Autobiographies

My Several Worlds (1954)
A Bridge For Passing (1962)

Biographies

The Exile (1936)
Fighting Angel (1936)

Novels

East Wind:West Wind (1930)
The House of Earth (1935)
- The Good Earth (1931)
- Sons (1933)
- A House Divided (1935)
The Mother (1933)
This Proud Heart (1938)
The Patriot (1939)
Other Gods (1940)
China Sky (1941)
Dragon Seed (1942)
The Promise (1943)
China Flight (1943)
The Townsman (1945) -- as John Sedges
Portrait of a Marriage (1945)
Pavilion of Women (1946)
The Angry Wife (1947) -- as John Sedges
Peony (1948)
The Big Wave (1948)
A Long Love (1949) -- as John Sedges
Kinfolk (1950)
God's Men (1951)
The Hidden Flower (1952)
Come, My Beloved (1953)
Voices in the House (1953) -- as John Sedges
Imperial Woman (1956)
Letter from Peking (1957)
Command the Morning (1959)
Satan Never Sleeps (1962; see 1962 film Satan Never Sleeps)
The Living Reed (1963)
Death in the Castle (1965)
The Time Is Noon (1966)
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (1967)
The New Year (1968)
The Three Daughters of Madame Liang (1969)
Mandala (1970)
The Goddess Abides (1972)
All Under Heaven (1973)
The Rainbow (1974)

Non-fiction

Of Men and Women (1941)
How It Happens: Talk about the German People, 1914-1933, with Erna von Pustau (1947)
The Child Who Never Grew (1950)
The Man Who Changed China: The Story of Sun Yat-sen (1953) for young readers
My Several Worlds (1954)
For Spacious Skies (1966)
The People of Japan (1966)
The Kennedy Women (1970)
China as I See It (1970)
The Story Bible (1971)
Pearl S. Buck's Oriental Cookbook (1972)

Short Stories

The First Wife and Other Stories (1933)
Today and Forever: Stories of China (1941)
Twenty-Seven Stories (1943)
Far and Near: Stories of Japan, China, and America (1949)
Fourteen Stories (1961)
Hearts Come Home and Other Stories (1962)
Stories of China (1964)
Escape at Midnight and Other Stories (1964)
The Good Deed and Other Stories of Asia, Past and Present (1969)
Once Upon a Christmas (1972)
East and West Stories (1975)
Secrets of the Heart: Stories (1976)
The Lovers and Other Stories (1977)
Mrs. Stoner and the Sea and Other Stories (1978)
The Woman Who Was Changed and Other Stories (1979)
The Good Deed (1969)
"Christmas Day in the Morning"
"The Refugee"

" The Chinese Children Next Door"  for children 
″  The Enemy

Awards

Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: The Good Earth (1932)
William Dean Howells Medal (1935)
Nobel Prize in Literature (1938)

Museums and Historic Houses

Several historic sites work to preserve and display artifacts from Pearl's profoundly multicultural life:

The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia
Green Hills Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
The Zhenjiang Pearl S. Buck Research Association in Zhenjiang, China
Pearl S. Buck House in Nanjing, China
The Pearl S. Buck Summer Villa, on Lushan Mountain in Jiangxi Province, China
The Pearl Buck Museum in Anhui Province, China
The Pearl S. Buck Memorial Hall, Bucheon City, South Korea^[11]

References

Peter J. Conn, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0521560802.)
Elizabeth Johnston Lipscomb, Frances E. Webb Peter J. Conn, eds., The Several Worlds of Pearl S. Buck: Essays Presented at a Centennial Symposium, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, March 26-28, 1992 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. ISBN 0313291527.)
Liao Kang, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Bridge across the Pacific (Westport, CT, London: Greenwood Press, 1997. ISBN 0313301468.)
Karen J. Leong, The China Mystique: Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, Mayling Soong, and the Transformation of American Orientalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0520244238.)
Pearl Buck's Portrait of Her Fighting Missionary Father (NY Times, November 29, 1936.)

Notes

^ Meyers, Mike. "Pearl of the Orient," New York Times. March 5, 2006.
^ Pearl S. Buck International, "Our History," 2009.
^ The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation, http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com
^ Buck, Pearl S. My Mother's House. Richwood, WV: Appalachian Press. Pp. 30-1.
^ Shavit, David (1990), The United States in Asia: a historical dictionary, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 480, ISBN 031326788X, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=IWdZTaJdc6UC (Entry for "Sydenstricker, Absalom")
^ Peter Conn, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) 9, 19-23.
^ Randolph-Macon Woman's College
^ Conn, Pearl S. Buck, 70-82.
^ Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. Ed. Peter Conn. New York: Washington Square Press, 1994. Pp. xviii-xix.
^ Conn, Peter, Dragon and the Pearl
^ http://www.psbi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PSBH_Other_PSB_Historic_Places

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Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck

Works by Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck

Humanitarian efforts

Life

Selected bibliography

Autobiographies

Biographies

Novels

Non-fiction

Short Stories

Awards

Museums and Historic Houses

See also

References

Notes

External links