author
Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker) Buck
1892–1973
Raised between the United States and China, she wrote fiction that brought Chinese rural life to a huge American audience and made The Good Earth one of the defining novels of its era. Her work, along with her outspoken humanitarian efforts, helped make her one of the best-known literary figures of the 20th century.
1 Audiobook
The mother
by Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker) Buck
About the author
Born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker in West Virginia in 1892, she spent most of her childhood in China, where her parents were Presbyterian missionaries. That bicultural upbringing shaped her writing for the rest of her life, giving her a close knowledge of Chinese language, family life, and village society that set her apart from many American writers of her generation.
She became internationally famous with The Good Earth in 1931, a novel about the life of a Chinese farming family. The book was a major bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1938 she became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Readers were drawn to her direct style, emotional clarity, and ability to make ordinary lives feel large and important.
Beyond her novels, she was also a public advocate for humanitarian causes, including cross-cultural understanding and the welfare of children. She remained a prolific writer throughout her life, producing novels, memoirs, essays, and nonfiction until her death in Vermont in 1973.