Pearl S. Buck, June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973

[redqueen]

Best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Good Earth. She also received the Nobel prize for literature in 1938. She grew up in China, the daughter if missionaries, and moved back there as an adult. She spent most of her life there. Much of her work focused on the conflict between East and West, not just regarding China but also Korea and India.

Since it's her birthday I thought I'd post this, and include some choice quotes.

"A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass."

"Growth itself contains the germ of happiness."

"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels."

"Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up."

"Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman."

"Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death."

"Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of the earth and the life upon it, that I cannot think of heaven and the angels."

"Love alone could waken love."

[Helen Reddy]

1. Without Pearl Buck.

My life would certainly have been bleak without Ms. Bucks understanding of the challenges for Korean children who had western fathers aka sperm donors. Her foundation paid my foster family a stipend each month to take care of me and hundreds of others like me who had no voice or hope. Many of us had too much of the "round eye" to fit in.

The Korean War with its predictable and subsequent horrors was a nightmare to many women and their non-Korean children.

Thank you for a post that means a great deal.

[redqueen]

2. Thank you for your comment!

She did a lot of work to try to help Asian-American children. She has a foundation bearing her name which focuses on just that... can't recall the exact name though.

[seabeyond]

4. i was so young hearing this issue. it left such an impact on me

before i knew much of life. this was an area that at about 10-12 i was drawn to reading about it.

thank you for sharing this information.

[Helen Reddy]

3. I believe it is simply called...

The Pearl Buck Foundation. Her daughter Janice now is head of the helm I believe.