Editing Pearl S. Buck (section)

== Career ==
===China===
[[File:Pearl Buck.jpg|thumb|Buck photographed in 1932, about the time ''The Good Earth'' was published]]
[[File:Richard J. Walsh, portrait photograph agc.7a13018.jpg|thumb|Buck married her publisher, Richard J. Walsh, the same day she divorced [[John Lossing Buck]], her first husband.]]
Although Buck had not intended to return to China, much less become a missionary, she quickly applied to the [[Presbyterian Mission Agency|Presbyterian Board]] when her father wrote that her mother was seriously ill. In 1914, Buck returned to China. She married an [[Agricultural economics|agricultural economist]] missionary, [[John Lossing Buck]], on May 13,<ref>{{cite book|author=Mary Ellen Snodgrass|title=American Women Speak|year=2016|publisher=ABC-Clio|isbn=978-1-4408-3785-2|page=115}}</ref> 1917, and they moved to [[Suzhou, Anhui]] Province, a small town on the [[Huai River]] (not to be confused with the better-known [[Suzhou, Jiangsu|Suzhou]] in [[Jiangsu Province]]). This is the region she describes in her books ''The Good Earth'' and ''Sons''.

From 1920 to 1933, the Bucks made their home in Nanjing, on the campus of the [[University of Nanking (defunct in 1952)|University of Nanking]], where they both had teaching positions. She taught [[English literature]] at this private, church-run university,<ref>{{cite book|author=Gould Hunter Thomas|
title=''An American in China, 1936–1939: A Memoir''| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6fL9PAAACAAJ|date=2004| chapter=Nanking | chapter-url=http://www.willysthomas.net/Nanking.htm | publisher=Greatrix Press|isbn=978-0-9758800-0-5}}</ref> and also at [[Ginling College]] and at the [[Nanjing University#History 2|National Central University]]. In 1920, the Bucks had a daughter, Carol, who was afflicted with [[phenylketonuria]] that left her severely [[developmentally disabled]]. Buck had to have a [[hysterectomy]] due to complications of Carol's birth, leaving her unable to have more biological children.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Graves |first=Kori A. |date=2019 |title=Amerasian Children, Hybrid Superiority and Pearl S. Buck's Transracial and Transnational Adoption Activism |url=https://gwern.net/doc/history/2019-graves-2.pdf |journal=[[Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography]] |volume=143 |issue=2 |pages=194 |doi=10.1353/pmh.2019.0016 |s2cid=150848411 |via=Gwern.net}}</ref> In 1921, Buck's mother died of a tropical disease, [[Tropical sprue|sprue]], 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 a master's degree from [[Cornell University]]. In 1925, the Bucks adopted a child named Janice (later surnamed Walsh). That autumn, they returned to China.<ref name="Conn, Pearl S. Buck, 70–82" />

The tragedies and dislocations that Buck suffered in the 1920s reached a climax in March 1927, during the "[[Nanking incident of 1927|Nanking Incident]]". In a confused battle involving elements of [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s [[National Revolutionary Army|Nationalist troops]], [[Communism in China|Communist]] forces, and assorted warlords, several Westerners were murdered. Since her father Absalom insisted, as he had in 1900 in the face of the Boxers, the family decided to stay in Nanjing until the battle reached the city. When violence broke out, a poor Chinese family invited 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, after which they moved back to Nanjing. Buck later said that this year in Japan showed her that not all Japanese were militarists. When she returned from Japan in late 1927, Buck devoted herself in earnest to the vocation of writing. Friendly relations with prominent Chinese writers of the time, such as [[Xu Zhimo]] and [[Lin Yutang]], encouraged her to think of herself as a professional writer. She wanted to fulfill the ambitions denied to her mother, but she also needed money to support herself if she left her marriage, which had become increasingly lonely. Since the mission board could not provide it, she also needed money for Carol's specialized care.

Buck traveled once more to the United States in 1929 to find long-term care for Carol, eventually placing her in the [[Vineland Training School]] in New Jersey. Buck served on the Board of Trustees for the school, at which Carol lived for the rest of her life and where she eventually died in 1992 at age 72.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Reader thanks Pearl Buck for 'beautiful stories' by tending her daughter's unmarked grave |url=https://www.thedailyjournal.com/story/news/2022/04/08/pearl-s-buck-daughter-unmarked-grave-vineland-memorial-marker/9475189002/ |access-date=2023-07-24 |website=The Daily Journal |language=en-US}}</ref> While Buck was in the United States, Richard J. Walsh, editor at [[John Day Company|John Day publishers]] in New York, accepted her novel ''[[East Wind: West Wind]].'' She and Walsh began a relationship that would eventually result in marriage and many years of professional teamwork.

Back in Nanking, Buck retreated every morning to the attic of her university house, and within the year, completed the manuscript for ''[[The Good Earth]]''.<ref name="Conn, Pearl S. Buck, 345">Conn, ''Pearl S. Buck'', 345.</ref>  She was involved in the charity relief campaign for the victims of the [[1931 China floods]], writing a series of short stories describing the plight of refugees, which were broadcast on the radio in the United States and later published in her collected volume ''The First Wife and Other Stories''.<ref name ="Courtney">Courtney, Chris (2018), [https://books.google.com/books?id=1DhFDwAAQBAJ "The Nature of Disaster in China: The 1931 Central China Flood"], Cambridge University Press [{{ISBN|978-1-108-41777-8}}]</ref>

When her husband took the family to [[Ithaca, New York]] the following year, Buck accepted an invitation to address a luncheon of Presbyterian women at the [[Hotel Astor (New York City)|Hotel Astor]] in New York City. Her talk was titled "Is There a Case for the Foreign Missionary?" and her answer was a barely qualified "no". She told her American audience that she welcomed Chinese to share her Christian faith, but argued that China did not need an institutional church dominated by missionaries who were too often ignorant of China and arrogant in their attempts to control it. When the talk was published in ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'',<ref>Pearl S. Buck, "Is There a Case for Foreign Missions?," ''Harper's'' 166 (January 1933):  143–155.</ref> the scandalized reaction led Buck to resign her position with the Presbyterian Board. In 1934, Buck left China, believing she would return,<ref name=":0" /> while her husband remained.<ref>Buck, Pearl S. ''The Good Earth.'' Ed. Peter Conn. New York: Washington Square Press, 1994. pp. xviii–xix.</ref>

===United States===
Buck divorced her husband John in [[Reno, Nevada]] on June 11, 1935,<ref>{{Cite web|title = Pearl Buck's divorce|url = http://renodivorcehistory.org/library/pearl-bucks-divorce/|website = renodivorcehistory.org|access-date = October 15, 2015}}</ref> and she married Richard Walsh that same day.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/essays/resurrection-pearl-buck|title=The Resurrection of Pearl Buck|last=Melvin|first=Sheila|date=2006|website=Wilson Quarterly Archives|access-date=October 24, 2016}}</ref> He reportedly offered her advice and affection which, her biographer concludes, "helped make Pearl's prodigious activity possible". The couple moved with Janice to [[Pearl S. Buck House National Historic Landmark|Green Hills Farm]] in [[Bucks County, Pennsylvania|Bucks County]], [[Pennsylvania]], which they quickly set about filling with adopted children. Two sons were brought home as infants in 1936 and followed by another son and daughter in 1937.<ref name=":1" />

Following the [[Chinese Communist Revolution|Communist Revolution]] in 1949, Buck was repeatedly refused all attempts to return to her beloved China. Her 1962 novel ''[[Satan Never Sleeps]]'' is heavily anti-communist and filled with religious themes, and was adapted into a film in the same year. During the [[Cultural Revolution]], Buck, as a preeminent American writer of Chinese village life, was denounced as an "American [[Cultural imperialism|cultural imperialist]]".<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125682489 | title=A Chinese Fan Of Pearl S. Buck Returns The Favor| date=April 7, 2010 | work=[[NPR]]}}</ref> Buck was "heartbroken" when she was prevented from visiting China with [[Richard Nixon]] in 1972, reportedly due to political interference by [[Jiang Qing]], a prominent figure in the denunciation of Buck.<ref name=":0" />

===Nobel Prize in Literature===
In 1938 the [[Nobel Committee for Literature|Nobel Prize committee]] in awarding the prize said:

{{blockquote|By awarding this year's Prize to Pearl Buck for the notable works which pave the way to a human sympathy passing over widely separated racial boundaries and for the studies of human ideals which are a great and living art of portraiture, the Swedish Academy feels that it acts in harmony and accord with the aim of Alfred Nobel's dreams for the future.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1938/ceremony-speech/|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1938|website=NobelPrize.org}}</ref>}}

In her speech to the Academy, Buck took as her topic "The Chinese Novel". She explained, "I am an American by birth and by ancestry", but "my earliest knowledge of story, of how to tell and write stories, came to me in China." After an extensive discussion of classic Chinese novels, especially ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'', ''[[Water Margin|All Men Are Brothers]]'', and ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]'', she concluded that in China "the novelist did not have the task of creating art but of speaking to the people." Her own ambition, she continued, had not been trained toward "the beauty of letters or the grace of art." In China, the task of the novelist differed from the Western artist: "To farmers he must talk of their land, and to old men he must speak of peace, and to old women he must tell of their children, and to young men and women he must speak of each other." And like the Chinese novelist, she concluded, "I have been taught to want to write for these people. If they are reading their magazines by the million, then I want my stories there rather than in magazines read only by a few."<ref>Nobel Lecture (1938) [https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1938/buck-lecture.html# The Chinese Novel]</ref>

===Humanitarian efforts===
[[File:Pearl Buck and Swedish King.gif|thumb|Pearl S. Buck receives the Nobel Prize for Literature from [[Gustaf V|King Gustav V of Sweden]] in the Stockholm Concert Hall in 1938]]
Buck was 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 (Buck book)|The Exile]]'' (on Carrie). She wrote on diverse subjects, including [[women's rights]], Asian cultures, immigration, adoption, missionary work, war, the [[atomic bomb]] (''Command the Morning''), and violence. Long before it was considered fashionable or politically safe to do so, Buck challenged the American public by raising consciousness on topics such as racism, sex discrimination and the plight of Asian [[war children]]. Buck combined the careers of wife, mother, author, editor, international spokesperson, and political activist.<ref name="Conn, Pearl S. Buck, xv-xvi">Conn, ''Pearl S. Buck'', xv–xvi.</ref> Buck became well-known as an advocate for civil rights, women’s rights, and the [[Disability rights movement|disability rights]].<ref>Lipscomb, Elizabeth Johnston "Pearl S. Buck." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 04 January 2023. Web. 01 April 2023.</ref>

In 1949, after finding that existing adoption services considered Asian and [[multiracial|mixed-race]] children unadoptable, Buck founded the first permanent [[foster home]] for US-born mixed-race children of Asian descent, naming it The Welcome Home. The foster home was located in a 16-room farmhouse in Pennsylvania next door to Buck's own home, Green Hill Farm, and Buck was actively involved in everything from planning the children's diets to buying their clothing. Among the home's Board of Directors were librettist [[Oscar Hammerstein II]] and his second wife, interior designer [[Dorothy Hammerstein|Dorothy]], composer [[Richard Rodgers]], seed company tycoon [[David Burpee]] and his wife Lois and author [[James A. Michener]]. As more and more children were referred to the foster home, however, it quickly became apparent that it couldn't accommodate them all and adoptive homes were needed. Welcome Home was turned into the first international, [[interracial adoption]] agency, and Buck began actively promoting the adoption of mixed-race children to the American public. In an effort to overcome the longstanding public view that such children were inferior and undesirable, Buck claimed in interviews and speeches that "hybrid" children of interracial backgrounds were actually genetically superior to other children in terms of intelligence and health. She and her husband Richard then adopted two mixed-race daughters from overseas themselves: an Afro-German girl in 1951 and an Afro-Japanese girl in 1957, giving her eight children in total.<ref name=":1" /> In 1967 she turned over most of her earnings—more than $7 million— to the adoption agency to help with costs.<ref>Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Pearl S. Buck". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Mar. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pearl-S-Buck. Accessed 1 April 2023.</ref>
[[File:Smithsonian - NPG - Pearl S. Buck - NPG.87.168.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Buck by Samuel Johnson Woolf]]
Buck established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation (name changed to Pearl S. Buck International in 1999)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://pearlsbuck.org/|title=Home|last=amy.gress|website=Pearl S Buck|language=en-US|access-date=February 25, 2019}}</ref> to "address poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asian countries." In 1964, 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."<ref>Pearl S. Buck International, "[http://www.psbi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PSBI_AboutUs_History Our History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061231155031/http://www.psbi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PSBI_AboutUs_History |date=2006-12-31 }}," 2009.</ref>[[File:Pearl Buck (Nobel).jpg|thumb|Pearl Buck (1938)]]In 1960, after a long decline in health that included a series of [[Stroke|strokes]],<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 20, 2001 |title=Pearl Buck's son speaks of her love: In Bucks Library, he recalls happy childhood at Green Hills Farm |work=[[The Morning Call]] |url=https://www.mcall.com/2001/03/20/pearl-bucks-son-speaks-of-her-love-in-bucks-library-he-recalls-happy-childhood-at-green-hills-farm/ |url-status=live |access-date=July 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230724010601/https://www.mcall.com/2001/03/20/pearl-bucks-son-speaks-of-her-love-in-bucks-library-he-recalls-happy-childhood-at-green-hills-farm/ |archive-date=July 24, 2023}}</ref> Buck's husband Richard Walsh died. She renewed a warm relationship with [[William Ernest Hocking]], who died in 1966. Buck then withdrew from many of her old friends and quarreled with others. 

In 1962 Buck asked the Israeli Government for [[clemency]] for [[Adolf Eichmann]], the [[War crimes of the Wehrmacht|Nazi war criminal]] who was complicit in the deaths of six million Jews during World War II,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Eichmann: his life and crimes|last=Cesarani, David.|date=2005|publisher=Vintage|isbn=0-09-944844-0|location=London|pages=319–20|oclc=224240952}}</ref> as she and others believed that carrying out [[capital punishment]] against Eichmann could be seen as an act of vengeance, especially since the war had ended.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The trial of Adolf Eichmann - Verdict - Exhibition Eichmann on Trial, Jerusalem 1961 – Shoah Memorial |url=https://juger-eichmann.memorialdelashoah.org/exhibition/verdict-en.html |access-date=2022-07-07 |website=juger-eichmann.memorialdelashoah.org}}</ref> 

During a December 17, 1962 visit to the Kennedy White House, Buck urged the Kennedy administration to help resolve [[Cross-Strait relations|People's Republic of China-Taiwan relations]] by supporting de facto independence of Taiwan for a 10 to 25 year period with an agreement that afterwards a plebiscite could be held based on a negotiated settlement.<ref name="Crean">{{Cite book |last=Crean |first=Jeffrey |title=The Fear of Chinese Power: an International History |date=2024 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |isbn=978-1-350-23394-2 |edition= |series=New Approaches to International History series |location=London, UK |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|page=103}}

Buck’s ties with her native state remained strong. In the title essay of My Mother’s House, a small book written by Buck and others to help raise funds for the Birthplace Museum, she paid tribute to the house her mother had cherished while living far away: ‘‘For me it was a living heart in the country I knew was my own but which was strange to me until I returned to the house where I was born.<ref>Lipscomb, Elizabeth Johnston "Pearl S. Buck." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 04 January 2023. Web. 01 April 2023.</ref> In the late 1960s, Buck toured West Virginia to raise money to preserve her family farm in [[Hillsboro, West Virginia]]. Today the [[Pearl S. Buck Birthplace]] is a [[historic house museum]] and cultural center.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com/ |title=The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation |access-date=September 27, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325073636/http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com/ |archive-date=March 25, 2015 }}</ref> She hoped the house would "belong to everyone who cares to go there," and serve as a "gateway to new thoughts and dreams and ways of life."<ref>Buck, Pearl S. ''My Mother's House.'' Richwood, WV: Appalachian Press. pp. 30–31.</ref>  Former U.S. President [[George H. W. Bush]] toured the Pearl S. Buck House in October 1998. He expressed that he, like millions of other Americans, had gained an appreciation for the Chinese people through Buck's writing.<ref>{{Citation | title = DDMap.com: 赛珍珠故居 | url = http://nj.ddmap.com/25/ddshop/659569 | access-date = February 21, 2010 | language = zh | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150402111830/http://nj.ddmap.com/25/ddshop/659569 | archive-date = April 2, 2015 }}</ref>