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Pearl Buck |
29 March 2010 |
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 The Nobel Prize-winning writer who bridged China and the West
The name of Pearl Buck was once known throughout the world as the author of an extraordinary and unexpected bestseller, 'The Good Earth'. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and led to Buck becoming the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Buck was born in America in 1892 but taken as a small baby to China. She spoke Chinese before she spoke English and found her playmates among the local Chinese children, experiences which later fed into her book. But ultimately she was to be denounced by the Communists, and slipped out of favour both in the West and in China. Hilary Spurling has just published a biographical account of Buck's years in China; Anchee Min’s novel imagines her life. They talk to Jane about celebrating this neglected writer.
'Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China' by Hilary Spurling is published by Profile Books, ISBN 978 1 86197 828 8. It is this week's Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 at 0945 and 0030, read by Lindsay Duncan.
'Pearl of China' by Anchee Min is published by Bloomsbury, ISBN 978 1 4088 0182 6 |
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