Pearl S. Buck (Pearl Sydenstricker Buck) Biography

American novelist, born in West Virginia. She lived in China until her early middle age which gave her a unique, double perspective which was reflected in her most famous works of fiction. Her first novel, East Wind: West Wind (1930), was followed by The Good Earth (1931; Pulitzer Prize), the first volume of the saga of a Chinese family, written in the poetic rhythms and lyrical prose of the Bible; Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935) completed the trilogy. The Mother (1934) and Dragon Seed (1942) are considered to be the works for which she will be remembered. Buck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1938. Much of her most passionate work, including Imperial Woman (1954; a study in fiction of the Empress Tzu Hsi), Letter from Peking (1957), and The Three Daughters of Madame Lian (1969), continued to be set in China but for the vast majority of her readers her message was universal. Buck successfully employed an American setting in such popular classics as Portrait of a Marriage (1945), Voices in the House (1953), The Time is Noon (1967; a deeply autobiographical work), and The Goddess Abides (1972). Buck was famous for her humanitarian commitment to improved East–West relations and the cause of children of mixed race and war orphans.