Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973), also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: was an American writer who spent most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces."[1]

Pearl Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, to Caroline Stulting (1857–1921) and Absalom Sydenstricker. Her parents, Southern Presbyterian missionaries, traveled to China soon after their marriage on July 8, 1880, but returned to the United States for Pearl's birth.

When Pearl was three months old, the family returned to China to be stationed first in Zhenjiang (then often known as Jingjiang or, in the Postal Romanization, Tsingkiang), (this is near Nanking). Pearl was raised in a bilingual environment, tutored in English by her mother and in classical Chinese by a Mr. Kung

The Boxer Uprising greatly affected Pearl and family; their Chinese friends deserted them, and Western visitors decreased.

The boxer uprising means ( Officially supported peasant uprising in 1900 in China that attempted to drive all foreigners from the country. Boxer was the English name given to a Chinese secret society that practiced boxing and calisthenic rituals in the belief that it would make its members impervious to bullets. Support for them grew in northern China during the late 19th century, when China's people were suffering from growing economic impoverishment and the country was forced to grant humiliating concessions to Western powers. In June 1900, after Boxers had killed Chinese Christians and Westerners, an international relief force was dispatched to quell the attacks).
Boxer Rebellion, an antiforeign uprising in China by members of a secret society beginning in June 1900. The society, originally called the Boxers United in Righteousness, drew their name from their martial rites. Over the course of the uprising, a force of some 140,000 Boxers killed thousands of Chinese Christians and a total of 231 foreigners, including Germany's ambassador

In 1911, Pearl left China to attend Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, US, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1914 and a member of Kappa Delta Sorority. From 1914 to 1933, she served as a Presbyterian missionary, but her views later became highly controversial in the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy, leading to her resignation.

In 1914, Pearl returned to China. She married an agricultural economist, John Lossing Buck (hereafter in this article Pearl Buck is referred to simply as 'Buck'), on May 13, 1917, and they moved to Suzhou, Anhui Province, a small town on the Huai River (not to be confused with the better-known Suzhou in Jiangsu Province). This region she describes in her books The Good Earth and Sons.

From 1920 to 1933, the Bucks made their home in Nanking (Nanjing), on the campus of Nanjing University, where both had teaching positions. Buck taught English literature at the private, church-run University of Nanking, and at the National Central University, (merged with Nanjing University, in 1952 and 1949 respectively). In 1920, the Bucks had a daughter, Carol, afflicted with phenylketonuria. In 1921, Buck's mother died and shortly afterward her father moved in.

In 1924, they left China for John Buck's year of sabbatical and returned to the United States for a short time, during which Pearl Buck earned her Masters degree from Cornell University. In 1925, the Bucks adopted Janice (later surnamed Walsh). That autumn, they returned to China.[5]

The tragedies and dislocations that Buck suffered in the 1920s reached a climax in March 1927, during the "Nanking Incident." In a confused battle involving elements of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops, Communist forces, and assorted warlords, several Westerners were murdered.

Since her father Absalom was a missionary, the family decided to stay in Nanjing until the battle reached the city. When violence broke out, a poor Chinese family allowed them to hide in their hut while the family house was looted. The family spent a day terrified and in hiding, after which they were rescued by American gunboats.

They traveled to Shanghai and then sailed to Japan, where they stayed for a year. They later moved back to Nanjing, though conditions remained dangerously unsettled. In 1934, they left China permanently.

In 1935 the Bucks were divorced. Richard Walsh, president of the John Day Company and Pearl Buck's publisher, became her second husband. Walsh offered her advice and affection which, her biographer concludes, "helped make Pearl's prodigious activity possible." The couple lived in Pennsylvania until his death in 1960.[7]

During the Cultural Revolution, Buck, as a preeminent American writer of Chinese peasant life, was denounced as an "American cultural imperialist." Buck was "heartbroken" when Madame Mao and high-level Chinese officials prevented her from visiting China with Richard Nixon in 1972.

Pearl S. Buck died of lung cancer on March 6, 1973, in Danby, Vermont and was interred in Green Hills Farm in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. She designed her own tombstone. The grave marker is inscribed with Chinese characters representing the name Pearl Sydenstricker.]

Buck was highly committed to a range of issues that were largely ignored by her generation. Many of her life experiences and political views are described in her novels, short stories, fiction, children's stories, and the biographies of her parents entitled Fighting Angel (on Absalom) and The Exile (on Carrie). She wrote on a diverse variety of topics including women's rights, Asian cultures, immigration, adoption, missionary work, and war.
In 1949, outraged that existing adoption services considered Asian and mixed-race children unadoptable, Buck established Welcome House, Inc., the first international, interracial adoption agency. In nearly five decades of work, Welcome House has placed over five thousand children. In 1964, to support children who were not eligible for adoption, Buck established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation (now called Pearl S. Buck International) to "address poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asian countries." In 1965, she opened the Opportunity Center and Orphanage in South Korea, and later offices were opened in Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. When establishing Opportunity House, Buck said, "The purpose... is to publicize and eliminate injustices and prejudices suffered by children, who, because of their birth, are not permitted to enjoy the educational, social, economic and civil privileges normally accorded to children."