Editing Pearl S. Buck (section)

===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>