UCLA Asia Institute
Today in Asian History
March 6
1971 Pearl Buck, Nobel and Pulitzer prize winning author, died at age 81. Buck's influence on how Americans and others viewed China, especially, and Asia, generally, was profound. Her novels were read by millions and a couple were turned into profitable and Oscar-winning films.
Pearl Sydenstricker was taken by her missionary parents to China when she was three months old and she spent most of her first four decades in China. Sydenstricker married agricultural reformer John Lossing Buck in 1915. She assisted her husband in his rural investigations, taught, cared for their daughter, and began writing. Her first novel was East Wind: West Wind (1930), but it was her second novel, The Good Earth (1931, Pulitzer Prize winner) that brought her fame and critical acclaim. The Good Earth (and two sequels) followed the farmer Wang Lung and his family through hard times and good ones. Readers (and there were legions of them, 1.8 million copies of the book were sold in its first year) were profoundly moved by Wang Lung's faith in land ownership and by his weaknesses.
Leaving China in 1935, Buck divorced her husband and married her publisher Richard Walsh. She continued writing and in 1938 became the third American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She had previously spoken out against the arrogance of many Western missionaries and in her Nobel acceptance speech told of her admiration for the Chinese people -- who were then in the first year of what would be a long struggle against Japanese invasion. A lifelong supporter of humanitarian causes, Buck also spoke out against the internment of Japanese Americans (as seen in a page from her FBI file). One organization carrying on her work is Pearl S. Buck International which works to improve the lives of children.
One of the most prolific authors of any era, Buck produced more than seventy books, including thirty-eight novels.
Peter Conn, author of Pearl Buck: A Cultural Biography teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and has created a website rich in information and photos about Buck. The website includes a short video clip from a documentary made by West Virginia Public Television about Buck.
1993 KANEMURA Shin, a dominant figure in the Liberal Democratic Party, was arrested on charges of evading $7.2 million in taxes. He was later released on a $2.5 million bond. Kanemura was convicted in 1992 of accepting $3.4 million in bribes from a parcel shipping company. He was fined $1,567.
The AI "Today in Asian History" page was compiled by Clayton Dube. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send them to <cdube@isop.ucla.edu>.
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