Pearl S. Buck: one tough grrl

 
The life of Pearl S. Buck reads like a soap opera crossed with an adventure story.  The child of missionaries, she grew up in China.  She started to write as soon as she could hold a pencil and used her writing to explore the world around her.  She painted word pictures bright with the colors, sights, and sounds of Chinese life; from the heavy, wet scent of the spring floods to the solemn hint of incense floating on the temple air.  She translated the world through her writing, and she shared that world with anyone who would read her stories.

When Pearl was in her 20’s, she met and married John Buck, an agricultural expert who was living in China.  In 1921 she had a daughter named Carol who suffered from PKU and who was sent to an American institution as a child.  As a result of the pregnancy, it was discovered that Pearl had cancer, and she underwent a hysterectomy.  That same year Pearl’s mother died in a remote Chinese province, and Pearl’s father moved in with the Bucks.  In 1925 Pearl, still longing for a daughter, adopted a young girl named Janice and continued to write.

Pearl moved with her family to Nanking, where Pearl had a teaching position at the local university and it looked like the bad times might finally be over for Pearl.  However, in 1927 a battle developed in Nanking between various military factions, and the Bucks spent days hiding from the death squads before they were finally evacuated by gunship.
 
Pearl used everything she felt and experienced as fuel for her writing.  As the universe seemed to be tearing her life apart, she used her writing to put that life back together stronger than it was before.  Pearl wrote about strong women who could overcome anything, who could withstand everything the universe could send and then ask for more, she wrote about women who worked in the fields before dawn to support men who could not appreciate their efforts, she wrote about rich women trapped within the web of social expectations, she wrote about the women who could not have children and about the women who could, she wrote about women rich and poor, young and old, innocent and twisted.  She learned through her writing how women survive, and she shared that with the world.

She wrote The Good Earth in 1931, and won a Pulitzer, a Nobel Prize in Literature (becoming the first American woman to win that prize, you go grrl!)  and a number of other awards.  Using her new found strength and fame, she divorced John Buck and remarried, moving with her new husband to the US so she could be closer to her daughter Carol.  Pearl continued to write, but she also began to take action “on the streets”, working to increase US-Chinese understanding,  She also founded an adoption agency that specialized in children other agencies wouldn’t place (mostly children of asian or mixed descent).  She herself adopted six children, and she organized financial support systems for children who could not be placed.

Pearl’s life wasn’t easy, and she didn’t get a lot of breaks, but she was one seriously tough grrl.  If you’re feeling depressed or unappreciated by the people around you, drop by your local library and pick up one of her books...she’ll help you through the tough times and show you how to shine, no matter what problems you face.

 

Leslie Clay grrl-e-grrl.com contributor