Nora Waln

Born in Pennsylvania in 1895, she grew up in a Quaker family and developed an early fascination with China. After leaving Swarthmore College, she traveled to China in 1920 and lived for about twelve years with the Lin family as a "daughter of affection," an experience that shaped her most famous book, The House of Exile (1933).

She later became known for writing that joined memoir, travel, and journalism. From 1934 to 1938 she lived in Germany, where she witnessed the rise of Nazism and turned those experiences into Reaching for the Stars (1939). She also contributed to The Atlantic Monthly, The Saturday Evening Post, and other magazines, and was noted as one of the few correspondents reporting from Communist China and Mongolia.

Her books are remembered for their close observation, warmth, and unusual perspective across cultures. She died in 1964, leaving behind a body of work that helps modern readers see major twentieth-century events through the eyes of someone who lived among them rather than simply passing through.