Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (1892–1973) was an American author who became famous for her writings about China and Asia. The child of missionaries, she grew up in the city of Zhenjiang, in China. Her best-known work was the Pulitzer-winning 1931 best-seller The Good Earth, which reshaped America's views of China. After the success of The Good Earth, she returned to America, but continued to write about Asia (both fiction and non-). She was a strong advocate for the rights of women and minorities, especially Asian, and created the first international, interracial adoption agency.
She won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature.
In addition to the numerous books she wrote under her own name, she also published four novels under the name John Sedges.
Works with a page on this wiki:
- The Good Earth (and its sequels, Sons and A House Divided)
- Pavilion of Women
- The Big Wave
Selected other works:
- East Wind: West Wind (1930)
- All Men Are Brothers (1933, translation of the classic Water Margin)
- China Sky (1941)
- The Townsman (1945, as John Sedges)
- Peony (1948)
- The Child Who Never Grew (non-fiction, 1950)
- Imperial Women (1956)
- Satan Never Sleeps (1962, adapted for film the same year)
- The Living Reed (1963)
- The People of Japan (non-fiction, 1966)
- The Three Daughters of Madame Liang (1968)
- China as I See It (non-fiction, 1970)
- The Eternal Wonder (published posthumously in 2013)
Tropes in her other works
- Intimate Psychotherapy: A lighter example in Peony. Peony, a young maid in a rich house, is forcefully kissed by an obnoxious guest who lusts after her. Peony runs away in disgust, and a few minutes later she finds the family's son, who she loves. She tells him what has just happened, and offers him her lips, requesting "Take my lips and clean them." He kisses her, effectively "cleaning" her from the assault.
- "Rediscovering Roots" Trip: Kinfolk is about the Liang family, whose patriarch emigrates to New York City from China. However, his two children Mary and James decide to move back to their ancestral village, and in doing so find self-completion and fulfillment.
