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On November 10, 1938, Nobel for Literature was awarded to American Pearl S. Buck. From the article:
"Prolific author Pearl S. Buck earned a Pulitzer Prize for her novel 'The Good Earth.' She was also the fourth female to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Who Was Pearl S. Buck?
Pearl S. Buck published her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, in 1930. Her next novel, The Good Earth, earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American female Nobel laureate. Concurrent with her writing career, she started the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, a humanitarian organization.
Early Life
Pearl S. Buck was born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. At the time of her birth, her parents, both Presbyterian missionaries, were taking a leave from their work in China after some of Buck's older siblings had died of tropical disease. Buck's parents were so committed to their missionary work that they decided to go back to the Chinese village of Chinkiang with 5-month-old Buck in tow.
Beginning at the age of 6, Buck was homeschooled by her mother for the early part of the day, and taught by a Chinese tutor during the afternoon. When she was 9 years old, the Boxer Rebellion forced Buck and her family to flee to Shanghai. Although her family returned to Chinkiang when the rebellion ended in 1901, Buck decided to attend boarding school in Shanghai in 1907. She completed her course load in 1909, and moved back to the United States in 1910 to study philosophy at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia. After earning her bachelor's degree, Buck was offered a position as a psychology professor at her alma mater. A semester later, Buck returned to China to take care of her mother, who had fallen ill.
Personal Life
Back in China, Buck fell in love with an agricultural missionary named John Lossing Buck. The two were married in 1917. They spent most of their early marriage living in Nanking, where John taught agricultural theory. Buck too returned for a while to teach at universities; this time, English was her subject of expertise. But Buck spent the majority of her time in Nanking caring for her mentally disabled daughter, Carol, who was born in 1920. In 1925, Buck returned to America to pursue her master's degree in English at Cornell University. In 1929, she enrolled Carol at the Vineland Training School in New Jersey.
Pearl and John would eventually divorce in 1935, when she left him to marry Richard Walsh, her publishing agent. Though she let go of John Buck, she would keep his last name for the rest of her life.
Major Works and Pulitzer Prize
After graduate school, Pearl S. Buck returned to China yet again. It was 1926, both of her parents were ailing, and her family's finances were in dire straits. Buck decided to start writing in hopes of earning a better living.
In 1930, Buck published her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, focusing on China's difficult transition from old traditions to a new way of life. Her next and perhaps best-known novel, The Good Earth, earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. The Good Earth highlights the life of Chinese peasants, a life that Buck had been privy to growing up in Chinkiang. After receiving the Pulitzer, Buck moved back to the United States permanently. In 1933, she went back to graduate school — this time at Yale University — and earned an additional master's degree. In 1938, she achieved the illustrious distinction of becoming the first American woman and fourth woman overall to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Buck continued to write prolifically thereafter, choosing China as the setting for the majority of her work. Her genres ranged from such popular novels-turned-movies as China Sky (1941) and The Dragon Seed (1942), to children's books like The Water-Buffalo Children (1943) and The Christmas Ghost (1960). Buck's body of work also includes non-fiction. Her final works include the non-fiction book China as I See It and a cookbook about Asian cuisine, Pearl S. Buck's Oriental Cookbook (1972).
Later Life and Death
Concurrent with her writing career, Buck was active in humanitarian efforts to protect Asian Americans against racial intolerance by increasing awareness. She also strove to improve disadvantaged Asian Americans' (particularly children's) living conditions. Toward these ends, Buck founded the East and West Association in 1941.
Also in support of these causes, in 1949, Buck started the adoption agency Welcome House, which specialized in the adoption of Asian-American children. In 1964, she established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to further "address the issues of poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asian countries." In 1973, she bequeathed her personal estate as the future headquarters of Pearl S. Buck International.
Buck died of lung cancer on March 6, 1973, in Danby, Vermont. Today, she continues to be regarded as a legendary American writer and humanitarian."
"Prolific author Pearl S. Buck earned a Pulitzer Prize for her novel 'The Good Earth.' She was also the fourth female to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Who Was Pearl S. Buck?
Pearl S. Buck published her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, in 1930. Her next novel, The Good Earth, earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American female Nobel laureate. Concurrent with her writing career, she started the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, a humanitarian organization.
Early Life
Pearl S. Buck was born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. At the time of her birth, her parents, both Presbyterian missionaries, were taking a leave from their work in China after some of Buck's older siblings had died of tropical disease. Buck's parents were so committed to their missionary work that they decided to go back to the Chinese village of Chinkiang with 5-month-old Buck in tow.
Beginning at the age of 6, Buck was homeschooled by her mother for the early part of the day, and taught by a Chinese tutor during the afternoon. When she was 9 years old, the Boxer Rebellion forced Buck and her family to flee to Shanghai. Although her family returned to Chinkiang when the rebellion ended in 1901, Buck decided to attend boarding school in Shanghai in 1907. She completed her course load in 1909, and moved back to the United States in 1910 to study philosophy at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia. After earning her bachelor's degree, Buck was offered a position as a psychology professor at her alma mater. A semester later, Buck returned to China to take care of her mother, who had fallen ill.
Personal Life
Back in China, Buck fell in love with an agricultural missionary named John Lossing Buck. The two were married in 1917. They spent most of their early marriage living in Nanking, where John taught agricultural theory. Buck too returned for a while to teach at universities; this time, English was her subject of expertise. But Buck spent the majority of her time in Nanking caring for her mentally disabled daughter, Carol, who was born in 1920. In 1925, Buck returned to America to pursue her master's degree in English at Cornell University. In 1929, she enrolled Carol at the Vineland Training School in New Jersey.
Pearl and John would eventually divorce in 1935, when she left him to marry Richard Walsh, her publishing agent. Though she let go of John Buck, she would keep his last name for the rest of her life.
Major Works and Pulitzer Prize
After graduate school, Pearl S. Buck returned to China yet again. It was 1926, both of her parents were ailing, and her family's finances were in dire straits. Buck decided to start writing in hopes of earning a better living.
In 1930, Buck published her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, focusing on China's difficult transition from old traditions to a new way of life. Her next and perhaps best-known novel, The Good Earth, earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. The Good Earth highlights the life of Chinese peasants, a life that Buck had been privy to growing up in Chinkiang. After receiving the Pulitzer, Buck moved back to the United States permanently. In 1933, she went back to graduate school — this time at Yale University — and earned an additional master's degree. In 1938, she achieved the illustrious distinction of becoming the first American woman and fourth woman overall to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Buck continued to write prolifically thereafter, choosing China as the setting for the majority of her work. Her genres ranged from such popular novels-turned-movies as China Sky (1941) and The Dragon Seed (1942), to children's books like The Water-Buffalo Children (1943) and The Christmas Ghost (1960). Buck's body of work also includes non-fiction. Her final works include the non-fiction book China as I See It and a cookbook about Asian cuisine, Pearl S. Buck's Oriental Cookbook (1972).
Later Life and Death
Concurrent with her writing career, Buck was active in humanitarian efforts to protect Asian Americans against racial intolerance by increasing awareness. She also strove to improve disadvantaged Asian Americans' (particularly children's) living conditions. Toward these ends, Buck founded the East and West Association in 1941.
Also in support of these causes, in 1949, Buck started the adoption agency Welcome House, which specialized in the adoption of Asian-American children. In 1964, she established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to further "address the issues of poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asian countries." In 1973, she bequeathed her personal estate as the future headquarters of Pearl S. Buck International.
Buck died of lung cancer on March 6, 1973, in Danby, Vermont. Today, she continues to be regarded as a legendary American writer and humanitarian."
Pearl S. Buck
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Novelist Pearl S. Buck Interview (Merv Griffin Show 1966)
Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning novelist Pearl S. Buck talks with Merv about her newest book, her charity work helping Asian orphans fathered by US servicem...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on November 10, 1938 USA author Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was awarded the Nobel for Literature.
Rest in peace Pearl S. Buck!
Novelist Pearl S. Buck Interview (Merv Griffin Show 1966)
Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning novelist Pearl S. Buck talks with Merv about her newest book, her charity work helping Asian orphans fathered by US servicemen, Communism in China and her new book ideas in this very rare interview from 1966. Merv Griffin had over 5000 guests appear on his show from 1963-1986.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIMED93CAkE
Rest in peace Pearl S. Buck!
Novelist Pearl S. Buck Interview (Merv Griffin Show 1966)
Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning novelist Pearl S. Buck talks with Merv about her newest book, her charity work helping Asian orphans fathered by US servicemen, Communism in China and her new book ideas in this very rare interview from 1966. Merv Griffin had over 5000 guests appear on his show from 1963-1986.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIMED93CAkE
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LTC Stephen F.
Pearl S. Buck: Biography, Influence on American & Chinese Cultural & Literary History (1997)
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 -- March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū), was an American wr...
Pearl S. Buck: Biography, Influence on American & Chinese Cultural & Literary History (1997)
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 -- March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū), was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces."
After her return to the United States in 1935, she continued her prolific writing career, and became a prominent advocate of the rights of women and minority groups, and wrote widely on Asian cultures, becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed race adoption.
Many contemporary reviewers were positive, and praised her "beautiful prose," even though her "style is apt to degenerate into overrepetition and confusion."[20] Robert Benchley wrote a parody of The Good Earth that focused on just these qualities, to excellent effect. Peter Conn, in his biography of Buck, argues that despite the accolades awarded to her, Buck's contribution to literature has been mostly forgotten or deliberately ignored by America's cultural gatekeepers.[21] Kang Liao argues that Buck played a "pioneering role in demythologizing China and the Chinese people in the American mind."[22] Phyllis Bentley, in an overview of Buck's work published in 1935, was altogether impressed: "But we may say at least that for the interest of her chosen material, the sustained high level of her technical skill, and the frequent universality of her conceptions, Mrs. Buck is entitled to take rank as a considerable artist. To read her novels is to gain not merely knowledge of China but wisdom about life."[23] These works aroused considerable popular sympathy for China, and helped foment poor relations with Japan.[24]
Anchee Min, author of a fictionalized life of Pearl Buck, broke down upon reading Buck's work, because she had portrayed the Chinese peasants "with such love, affection and humanity".[25]
Buck was honored in 1983 with a 5¢ Great Americans series postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service[26] In 1999 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.[27]
(赛珍珠故居) Buck's former residence at Nanjing University is now the Sai Zhenzhu Memorial House along the West Wall of the university's north campus. U.S. President George H.W. Bush toured the Pearl S. Buck House in October 1998. He expressed that he, like millions of other Americans, had gained an appreciation for the Chinese through Buck's writing."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vJ28biuYA&t=8s
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 -- March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū), was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces."
After her return to the United States in 1935, she continued her prolific writing career, and became a prominent advocate of the rights of women and minority groups, and wrote widely on Asian cultures, becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed race adoption.
Many contemporary reviewers were positive, and praised her "beautiful prose," even though her "style is apt to degenerate into overrepetition and confusion."[20] Robert Benchley wrote a parody of The Good Earth that focused on just these qualities, to excellent effect. Peter Conn, in his biography of Buck, argues that despite the accolades awarded to her, Buck's contribution to literature has been mostly forgotten or deliberately ignored by America's cultural gatekeepers.[21] Kang Liao argues that Buck played a "pioneering role in demythologizing China and the Chinese people in the American mind."[22] Phyllis Bentley, in an overview of Buck's work published in 1935, was altogether impressed: "But we may say at least that for the interest of her chosen material, the sustained high level of her technical skill, and the frequent universality of her conceptions, Mrs. Buck is entitled to take rank as a considerable artist. To read her novels is to gain not merely knowledge of China but wisdom about life."[23] These works aroused considerable popular sympathy for China, and helped foment poor relations with Japan.[24]
Anchee Min, author of a fictionalized life of Pearl Buck, broke down upon reading Buck's work, because she had portrayed the Chinese peasants "with such love, affection and humanity".[25]
Buck was honored in 1983 with a 5¢ Great Americans series postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service[26] In 1999 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.[27]
(赛珍珠故居) Buck's former residence at Nanjing University is now the Sai Zhenzhu Memorial House along the West Wall of the university's north campus. U.S. President George H.W. Bush toured the Pearl S. Buck House in October 1998. He expressed that he, like millions of other Americans, had gained an appreciation for the Chinese through Buck's writing."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vJ28biuYA&t=8s
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