Pearl S. Buck – författare

When O-lan, a servant girl, marries the peasant Wang Lung, she toils tirelessly through four pregnancies for their family's survival. Reward at first is meagre, but there is sustenance in the land - until the famine comes. Half-starved, the family joins thousands of peasants to beg on the city streets. It seems that all is lost, until O-lan's desperate will to survive returns them home with undreamt of wealth. But they have betrayed the earth from which true wealth springs, and the family's money breeds only mistrust, deception - and heartbreak for the woman who had saved them. The Good Earthis a riveting family saga and story of female sacrifice - a classic of twentieth-century literature.

"If you’re giving one book for Christmas, make it this one." —Jim Trelease, author, The Read-Aloud HandbookThey are some of the warmest childhood memories, those unhurried evenings around the fireplace, Christmas tree, or dinner table, when there was time for a story. Now, with this collection, you can keep the story-telling tradition alive in your family, and pass it on to your children or grandchildren.Home for Christmas includes twenty time-honored tales. Several are by world-famous authors; others are little-known treasures translated from other languages. Selected for their literary quality and spiritual integrity, they will resonate with readers of all ages, year after year.With original woodcuts by David Klein

The classic coming-of-age novel about a young Chinese woman torn between Eastern and Western cultures by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth.  Kwei-lan is a traditional Chinese girl—taught by her mother to submit in all things, “as a flower submits to sun and rain alike.” Her marriage was arranged before she was born. As she approaches her wedding day, she’s surprised by one aspect of her anticipated life: Her husband-to-be has been educated abroad and follows many Western ideas that Kwei-lan was raised to reject. When circumstances push the couple out of the family home, Kwei-lan finds her assumptions about tradition and modernity tested even further. East Wind: West Wind is a sensitive, early exploration of the cross-cultural themes that went on to become a hallmark of Buck’s acclaimed novels. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The second installment in Pearl S. Buck’s acclaimed Good Earth trilogy: the powerful story of three brothers whose greed will bring their family to the brink of ruinSons begins where The Good Earth ended: Revolution is sweeping through China. Wang Lung is on his deathbed in the house of his fathers, and his three sons stand ready to inherit his hard-won estate. One son has taken the family’s wealth for granted and become a landlord; another is a thriving merchant and moneylender; the youngest, an ambitious general, is destined to be a leader in the country. Through all his life’s changes, Wang did not anticipate that each son would hunger to sell his beloved land for maximum profit. At once a tribute to early Chinese fiction, a saga of family dissension, and a depiction of the clashes between old and new, Sons is a vivid and compelling masterwork of fiction.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A man returns to his native China to find upheaval in both his homeland and his family in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author. On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still in the grip of violent uprisings. Unprepared for the social upheaval, Wang is torn by the tensions between old traditions and new ways, and by his formidable family, whose struggles he hopes to solve. A reflective finale to Buck’s groundbreaking and bestselling trilogy, A House Divided is a rich and unforgettable portrait of a family—and a nation—in transition. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

From the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth: The “moving story” of a peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China who is abandoned by her husband (Kirkus Reviews).  Dickensian in its epic sweep, one of Buck’s finest novels centers on an unnamed peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China. Without warning, her restless husband abandons her. Shamed by the experience, she is left to work the land, raise their three children on her own, and care for her aging mother-in-law. To save face with her neighbors, she pretends her husband is traveling, and sends letters to herself signed in his name. Surrounded by poverty, despair, and a growing web of lies meant to protect the family, her children grow up and enter society with only the support of their mother’s unbreakable will. An unforgettable story of one woman’s strength and a remarkable fable about the role of mothers, this novel is a powerful achievement by a master of twentieth-century fiction. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A “vivid and extremely interesting” novel of an upper-class Chinese wife’s quest for freedom, from the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth (The New Yorker).  At forty, Madame Wu is beautiful and much respected as the wife of one of China’s oldest upper-class houses. Her birthday wish is to find a young concubine for her husband and to move to separate quarters, starting a new chapter of her life. When her wish is granted, she finds herself at leisure, no longer consumed by running a sixty-person household. Now she’s free to read books previously forbidden her, to learn English, and to discover her own mind. The family in the compound are shocked at the results, especially when she begins learning from a progressive, excommunicated Catholic priest. In its depiction of life in the compound, Pavilion of Women includes some of Buck’s most enchanting writing about the seasons, daily rhythms, and customs of women in China. It is a delightful parable about the sexes, and of the profound and transformative effects of free thought. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A New York Times–bestselling historical novel about the Japanese invasion of Nanking from the author of The Good Earth. Farmer Liang Tan knows only a quiet, traditional life in his remote Chinese farming community. When news filters in that Japanese forces are invading the country, he and his fellow villagers believe that if they behave decently to the Japanese soldiers, the civilians might remain undisturbed. They’re in for a shock, as the attackers lay waste to the country and install a puppet government designed to systematically carry out Japanese interests. In response, the Chinese farmers and their families form a resistance—which not only carries grave risk, but also breaks their vow of nonviolence, leading them to wonder if they’re any different than their enemy. Later adapted into a film featuring Katharine Hepburn, Dragon Seed is a brilliant and unflinching look at the horrors of war. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A novel set in WWII Burma about a tragic Chinese–English alliance from the New York Times–bestselling author of Dragon Seed and The Good Earth. Burma is under attack from the Japanese army, and a unit of Chinese soldiers is sent to aid endangered British forces trapped behind enemy lines. China’s assistance hinges on a promise: In return, the Allies will supply China with airplanes and military equipment, much needed to protect their own civilian population. But the troops—including a young commander named Lao San, whom Buck fans will remember from Dragon Seed—are met with ingratitude on both sides. The Burmese deplore any friend of their abusive colonizers, and the prejudiced British soldiers can’t bring themselves to treat the Chinese as true allies. As the threat of disaster looms and the stakes grow higher, the relations between the British and Chinese troops become ever more fraught.  A trenchant critique of colonialism and wartime betrayal, The Promise is Buck at her evocative best.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A young Chinese woman falls in love with a Jewish man in nineteenth-century China in this evocative novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth. In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family’s son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another, they face strong opposition from every side. Tradition forbids the marriage, and the family already has a rabbi’s daughter in mind for David. Long celebrated for its subtle and even-handed treatment of colliding traditions, Peony is an engaging coming-of-age story about love, identity, and the tragedy and beauty found at the intersection of two disparate cultures.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

An “absorbing and fast-moving” saga of Korea as experienced by one unforgettable family, from the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth (The New York Times).  “The year was 4214 after Tangun of Korea, and 1881 after Jesus of Judea.” So begins Pearl S. Buck’s The Living Reed, an epic historical novel seen through the eyes of four generations of Korean aristocracy.   As the chronicle begins, the Kims are living comfortably as advisors to the Korean royal family. But that world is torn apart with the Japanese invasion, when the queen is killed and the Kims are thrust into hiding. Through their story, Buck traces the country’s journey from the late nineteenth century through the end of the Second World War.   “The Korean people come hauntingly alive,” wrote the Journal of Asian Studies about The Living Reed. “The remarkable novels of Pearl S. Buck have given the world an awakened understanding and appreciation of the Chinese people, and now she has wrought a like marvel for Korea.” A New York Times bestseller, The Living Reed is an enlightening account of a nation’s fight for survival and a gripping tale of a family caught in the ebb and flow of history.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

Four Chinese-American siblings make an emotional journey to their ancestral home in this novel from the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good Earth.  Dr. Liang is a comfortably well-off professor of Confucian philosophy who fled China because of the government’s crackdown on intellectuals. Now, settled in 1940s New York, he believes in the notion of a pure and unchanging homeland. Under his influence, Liang’s four grown children make the momentous decision to move to China, despite having spent their whole lives in the United States. But as the siblings try in various ways to adjust to a new place and culture, they learn that the definition of home is far different from what they expected.  Kinfolk is the involving story of an American family and literary fiction of the highest order. The New York Times–bestselling author of Dragon Seed, China Sky, and many other novels, explores the complexities of immigration, multiculturalism, nationality, and the primordial human longing to find our roots.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times–bestselling novel about a peasant farmer and his family in early twentieth-century China.The Good Earth is Buck’s classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple’s fortunes improve over the years: They have sons, and save steadily until one day they can afford to buy property in the House of Wang—the very house in which O-lan used to work. But success brings with it a new set of problems. Wang soon finds himself the target of jealousy, and as good harvests come and go, so does the social order. Will Wang’s family cherish the estate after he’s gone? And can his material success, the bedrock of his life, guarantee anything about his soul? Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Award, The Good Earth was an Oprah’s Book Club choice in 2004. A readers’ favorite for generations, this powerful and beautifully written fable resonates with universal themes of hope and family unity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The classic tale of a Japanese boy orphaned by a tsunami from the author of The Good Earth, the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. On a mountainside in Japan, two boys enjoy a humble life governed by age-old customs. Jiya belongs to a family of fishermen; his best friend, Kino, farms rice. But when a neighboring volcano erupts and a tidal wave swallows their village—including Jiya’s family—life as they know it is changed forever. The orphaned Jiya must learn to come to terms with his grief. Now facing a profoundly different life than the one he’d always taken for granted, he must decide on a new way forward. Written with graceful simplicity, The Big Wave won the Children’s Book Award of the Child Study Association of America when it was first released. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A “groundbreaking” memoir about raising a special-needs daughter in an era of misinformation and prejudice—a classic that helped transform our perceptions (Publishers Weekly).  It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights.   Pearl S. Buck is known today for earning a Nobel Prize in Literature and for such New York Times–bestselling novels as The Good Earth. What many do not know is that she wrote that great work of art with the motivation of paying for a special school for her oldest daughter, Carol, who had a rare developmental disorder.   What was called “mental retardation” at the time—though some used crueler terms—was a disability that could cause great suffering and break a parent’s heart. There was little awareness of how to deal with such children, and as a result some were simply hidden away, considered a source of shame and stigma, while others were taken advantage of because of their innocence.   In this remarkable account, which helped bring the issue to light, Pearl S. Buck candidly discusses her own experience as a mother, from her struggle to accept Carol’s diagnosis to her determination to give her child as full and happy a life as possible, including a top-quality education designed around her needs and abilities. Both heartrending and inspiring, The Child Who Never Grew provides perspective on just how much progress has been made in recent decades, while also offering common sense and timeless wisdom for the challenges still faced by those who love and care for someone with special needs. It is a clear-eyed and compelling read by a woman renowned for both her literary talent and her humanitarian spirit.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.  

In the 1930s, as her second marriage approaches, a brilliant and independent sculptor faces tensions between her art and everyday life in this novel by the author of The Good Earth. This Proud Heart narrates the experience of a gifted sculptor and her struggle to reconcile her absorbing career with society’s domestic expectations. Susan Gaylord is talented, loving, equipped with a strong moral sense, and adept at anything she puts her hand to, from housework to playing the piano to working with marble and clay. But the intensity of her artistic calling comes at a price, isolating her from other people—at times, even from her own family. When her husband dies and she remarries, she finds herself once again comparing the sacrifice of solitude to that of commitment. With a heroine who is naturalistic yet compellingly larger than life, This Proud Heart is incomparable in its sympathetic study of character.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A Chinese dissident is torn between love and country in this novel from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Good Earth.  When Wu I-wan starts taking an interest in revolution, trouble follows: Winding up in prison, he becomes friends with fellow dissident En-lan. Later, his name is put on a death list and he’s shipped off to Japan. Thankfully, his father, a wealthy Shanghai banker, has made arrangements for his exile, putting him in touch with a business associate named Mr. Muraki. Absorbed in his new life, I-wan falls in love with Mr. Muraki’s daughter, and must prove he is worthy of her hand. As news spreads of what the Japanese army is doing back in China, I-wan realizes he must go back and fight for the country that banished him.The Patriot is an engrossing story of revolution, love, and reluctantly divided loyalties by the Nobel Prize–winning author renowned for her novels set in Asia and informed by the sweep of history, including the New York Times bestsellers The Living Reed and The Hidden Flower.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A wealthy painter falls in love with an illiterate Pennsylvania farm girl in this novel from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Good Earth.  At the turn of the century, an upper-class painter from Philadelphia goes searching for inspiration. He finds his muse on a farm—the farmer’s beautiful and humble daughter. His portrait of her becomes one of his most inspired works, but his passion for the illiterate girl doesn’t stop at the easel: He returns to marry her and settle down to country life—a journey that means bridging enormous gaps between their cultures, breaking from his parents, and creating tension between their friends. Pearl S. Buck compassionately imagines both sides of the complex marriage, and in addition, creates a wonderfully vivid picture of America leading up to the Second World War. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A novel of a Southern woman trapped in the past and two brothers divided by the Civil War, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Good Earth.  Lucinda Delaney is a southern belle ruled by a vision of life that no longer exists. The Civil War has come and gone and her side has lost, yet she is determined to proceed as if nothing has changed—a denial that stokes the flames of her irrational angers. Despite her returned husband’s devotion, Lucinda is sure he is having an affair with one of their slaves. After all, his Union-sympathizing brother, Tom, did just that, scandalously running away with the woman and settling into contented family life in Philadelphia. Over the years, her racist feelings and fears only intensify, and when it’s time for her own daughter to marry, her chief concern is the color of the children. The Angry Wife is a memorable and impassioned dissection of prejudice, as well as a riveting portrait of post­–Civil War America. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

Youthful friends in turn-of-the-century China reunite years later in America, in this New York Times bestseller by the author of The Good Earth.  This deeply felt novel tells the story of William Lane and Clem Miller, Americans who meet in China as youths at the end of the nineteenth century. Separated by the Boxer Rebellion, they’re destined to travel wildly different courses in life. From a background of wealth and privilege, William becomes a power-hungry and controlling media magnate. By contrast, Clem, whose family survived on charity growing up, is engrossed by a project—which he works on ceaselessly, perhaps naively, together with his chemist wife—to eliminate world poverty. The two wind up in America and meet again, each successful in his own area, and as similar in their intensity as they are different in their values. God’s Men is a rich and layered portrayal of lives set alight by ambition. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.