“I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.”
—Pearl S. Buck
Image may be NSFW.
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We are thrilled to announce the addition of fifteen classic titles by the legendary Pearl S. Buck to the Open Road ebook collection on May 21, 2013. In celebration, we’re sharing this rare archival photo from 1964, when Buck addressed an audience on the issues of poverty and discrimination faced by children in Korea.
A bestselling and Nobel Prize–winning author of fiction and nonfiction, Buck was the daughter of missionaries and spent much of the first half of her life in the East, where many of her books are set. As an American who had been raised in China, and who had been affected by both the Boxer Rebellion and the 1927 Nanking Incident, Buck was able to give her western readers an intimate sense of a vastly misunderstood culture. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.In Imperial Woman, for example, Buck brings to life the incredible story of Tzu Hsi, a beautiful and charming woman who rose from the lowly status of concubine to become the working head of the Qing Dynasty and one of the most powerful figures in modern history. Much has been written about Tzu Hsi, but no other work recreates her life in such brilliant and vivid detail.
Buck, however, was not only interested in China, and set stories in Japan (A Bridge for Passing), India (Come, My Beloved), and America (The Angry Wife), too. Because of this, she was able to employ fiction as a means to explore the many differences between East and West, from tradition and modernity, as well as the hardships of impoverished people during times of social upheaval.
Buck's fascinating life story is fully chronicled in her memoir, My Several Worlds, a book that is not only an important reflection on China’s recent history, but also an account of her re-engagement with the US. The intense activity that characterized her life makes for a thrilling read—one that brilliantly explores many of the landmark themes of her story, including her prolific career as novelist, her loves and many friendships, and her work with Welcome House, which she founded in 1949 as the first international, interracial adoption agency in the United States.
Though her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Good Earth, was a massive success in the US, the Chinese government objected to Buck’s stark portrayal of the country’s rural poverty and, in 1972, prohibited her from returning to the country. Despite this blow, as well as her death of lung cancer a year later, she was still considered, in the words of China’s first premier, Zhou Enlai, to have been such “a friend of the Chinese people,” that her former house in Zhenjiang is now a museum in honor of her legacy.
