I asked Sarah to pretty please trade me posts this month. I was supposed to write the intro post, but as I haven’t yet read the book, I thought someone who loved it should write that post. Undoubtedly, when I learn more about a book/author/movie/artist, their work becomes more interesting to me.

This beautiful woman is Pearl S. Buck. I think the S stands for Sydenstricker, her maiden name. Considering that both her names are concrete nouns, I think the S was a good idea. With that observation, I immediately started to like her. She must have good judgement.

Then I read that she won both a Pulitzer and a Nobel prize. Woah. Way to go! The Pulitzer was for this month’s book The Good Earth, and the Nobel prize for her body of works, rather than one specific piece. I did a bit more reading and found that usually the Pulitzer for a novel is given for a work about American life, so I found it particularly noteworthy that she won for a story on rural Chinese life.

I am not surprised, though, that she decided to write on Chinese life. She was the daughter of missionaries to China which perfectly poised her to share their lives with us. She was more than an author, though. She has commendable bibliography, but she also founded the first international and interracial adoption agency. WHY HAVEN’T I HEARD OF HER BEFORE?

She spent the later half of her life bringing light to then unpopular issues such as, “racism, sex discrimination and the plight of the thousands of babies born to Asian women left behind and unwanted wherever American soldiers were based in Asia.” (Wikipedia)

I am so impressed by this artist (writer), humanitarian, and political activist. So I’m going to go read her Pulitzer prize-winning novel. You should too. Then, join us for our annual spring tea party Thursday, April 12 at 7pm. (Leave a comment if you need location information.)