author
Nora Waln
1895–1964
A bestselling American journalist and travel writer, she brought readers vivid firsthand accounts of life in China and Germany during some of the 20th century’s most turbulent years. Her work is remembered for its curiosity, range, and early warning about the rise of Nazism.
1 Audiobook
The Street of Precious Pearls
by Nora Waln
About the author
Born in Grampian Hills, Pennsylvania, in 1895, Nora Waln became an American writer and journalist whose books and articles reached a wide audience from the 1930s through the 1950s. Reliable sources agree that she wrote extensively out of her experiences in China and Germany, and that she was among the early observers to report on the spread of Nazism before the Second World War.
Waln traveled widely in Europe and Asia and contributed to major magazines as well as publishing books of her own. Archive and reference sources also describe her as a Quaker writer, a background that helps explain the moral seriousness and international outlook often associated with her work.
She died on September 27, 1964. Although her name is less widely known today than some of her contemporaries, her writing still stands out for combining personal witness with a sharp sense of history in motion.