Pearl Sydenstricker Buck also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhju , was an American writer who spent most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces." Pearl Buck was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia, to Caroline Stulting and Absalom Sydenstricker. Her parents, Southern Presbyterian missionaries, traveled to China... soon after their marriage on July 8, 1880, but returned to the United States for Pearl's birth. When Pearl was three months old, the family returned to China to be stationed first in Zhenjiang . Pearl was raised in a bilingual environment, tutored in English by her mother and in classical Chinese by a Mr. Kung. The Boxer Uprising greatly affected Pearl and family; their Chinese friends deserted them, and Western visitors decreased.
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