Pearl S Buck

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times–bestselling novel about a peasant farmer and his family in early twentieth-century China.
The Good Earth is Buck's classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple's fortunes improve over the years: They have sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in

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A man returns to his native China to find upheaval in both his homeland and his family in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author.
On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to...

The Nobel Prize-winning author's perceptive fable of cross-cultural passions in nineteenth-century China. In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family's son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another,...

Set in China during the early twentieth century, Pearl S. Buck's timeless trilogy is the powerful story of a family-and a nation-in transition The Good Earth is Buck's classic, Pulitzer Prize–winning story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple's fortunes improve over the years: They are blessed with sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in...

A Nobel laureate's gripping historical novel about the Japanese invasion of Nanking. Farmer Liang Tan knows only a quiet, traditional life in his remote Chinese farming community. When news filters in that Japanese forces are invading the country, he and his fellow villagers believe that if they behave decently to the Japanese soldiers, the civilians might remain undisturbed. They're in for a shock, as the attackers lay waste to the country and install...

Nobel winner Pearl S. Buck's classic debut novel, about one Chinese woman's coming of age as she's torn between Eastern and Western cultures. Kwei-lan is a traditional Chinese girl, taught by her mother to submit in all things, 'as a flower submits to sun and rain alike.' Her marriage was arranged before she was born. As she approaches her wedding day, she's surprised by one aspect of her anticipated life: Her husband-to-be has been educated abroad...

The progress towards women's equality has been hard-won, but the capitalist system has been able to absorb, even incorporate many of these gains to its own advantage, as is shown in Yassamine Mather's essays in this book. Today, the unprecedented global humanitarian crisis, with its wars and mass poverty and starvation, has its greatest impact on women and children, and the particular sensibilities of women are essential to any understanding of and...

A provocative and fascinating exploration of male–female relationships by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth. Pearl S. Buck grew up in China, accustomed to its traditions, but when she moved to the United States as an adult in the 1930s, she was struck by the cultural differences in gender roles and expectations. In nine short chapters, she applies this personal experience to an exploration of the power dynamics of the American household,...

A compelling historical novel about the tragic alliance between Chinese and English forces in Burma during World War II. Burma is under attack from the Japanese army, and a unit of Chinese soldiers is sent to aid endangered British forces trapped behind enemy lines. China's assistance hinges on a promise: In return, the Allies will supply China with airplanes and military equipment, much needed to protect their own civilian population. But the troops,...

Dickensian in its epic sweep, one of Buck's finest novels centers on an unnamed peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China. Without warning, her restless husband abandons her. Shamed by the experience, she is left to work the land, raise their three children on her own, and care for her aging mother-in-law. To save face with her neighbors, she pretends her husband is traveling, and sends letters to herself signed in his name. Surrounded by poverty,...