Classic Authors: Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck brought to American literature something that few other authors could: first-hand experience of a foreign culture. Although she was born in the United States, she lived most of her life in China. This shaped the way she wrote, her subject matter, and the causes to which she would pledge her support.

Pearl's parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, served as Southern Presbyterian missionaries; they were stationed in China. While on furlough in 1892, they had Pearl. She was born on June 26. Soon after her birth, her parents returned to China, with their new baby. Pearl would remain in China for the first 40 years of her life.

The Sydenstrickers lived in Chinkiang (Zhenjiang) in Kiangsu (Jiangsu) Province, a small city which lay at the junction of Yangtze River and the Grand Canal. Pearl's father spent many months away from the family, combing the countryside for people to convert. Her mother devoted her days to the women in a small dispensary which she established. Pearl spoke fluent Chinese at a young age. She never attended school, but was taught by her mother and a private Chinese tutor.

In 1900, during the Boxer Uprising, Caroline and the children evacuated to Shanghai, where they waited anxiously for word from Absalom. Later that year, the whole family returned to the U.S. on leave. The family returned to China, but Pearl had no intention of going back.

A decade later, Pearl enrolled at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia. At first, she found the American girls frivolous, but eventually came to admire their "freedom and spontaneity." She studied philosophy and became involved in student government. She was elected class president, and was a Phi Beta Kappa. She graduated in 1914.

When Pearl received word that her mother was gravelly ill, she returned to China. While tending to her mother, she met John Lossing Buck, a Cornell graduate, who was working in China. They married in 1917, and moved to Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) Province. Her mother died several years later, and Pearl's father moved in with she and Lossing. To the household, she added one child, Carol, who was severely retarded. Because of a tumor in Pearl's uterus, she underwent a hysterectomy. The Bucks adopted another girl, Janice, in 1925.

Pearl's experiences in Nanhsuchou fueled her imagination; she used the city to gather information for stories and novels. She began publishing stories and essays in 1920 in magazines such as Nation, The Chinese Recorder , Asia and Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, appeared in 1930, and was published by John Day Co. John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, would become Pearl's second husband. The next year, Pearl published The Good Earth, which became the best-selling novel for the years 1931 and 1932. In 1935, Pearl won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal. Three years later, she became the first American woman to earn the Nobel Prize. It would be another 55 years until another American woman, Toni Morrison, would win the prize.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic