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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]
[edit] Humanitarian effortsMany 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] [edit] Life 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]  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 (This should not be confused with the better-known city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province.). It is this region she described later in The Good Earth and Sons. 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 both 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 which 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] [edit] Selected bibliography[edit] Autobiographies
[edit] Biographies
[edit] Novels
[edit] Non-fiction
The Man Who Changed China: The Story of Sun Yat-sen (1953) for young readers
[edit] Short Stories
" The Chinese Children Next Door" for children [edit] Awards
[edit] Museums and Historic HousesSeveral historic sites work to preserve and display artifacts from Pearl's profoundly multicultural life:
[edit] See also[edit] References
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
Categories: 1892 births | 1973 deaths | Alumnae of women's universities and colleges | American Christian missionaries | American expatriates in China | American historical novelists | American human rights activists | American Nobel laureates | American novelists | American Presbyterians | Christian missionaries in China | Cornell University alumni | Nanjing University faculty | Nobel laureates in Literature | People from Bucks County, Pennsylvania | People from Pocahontas County, West Virginia | Presbyterian missionaries | Pulitzer Prize for the Novel winners | Writers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Writers from West Virginia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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