[ti:Pearl S. Buck: The First American Woman to Win a Nobel Prize in Literature]
[al:As It Is]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2025-02-26]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]The year was 1931. 
[00:04.33]The top selling book in the United States was The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.
[00:13.21]The following year, Buck won the Pulitzer Prize for the best novel by an American writer.
[00:22.66]In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
[00:32.76]She wrote more than one hundred books. 
[00:35.90]She also wrote short stories, poetry, plays, essays, and children's books.
[00:45.00]But most people remember Pearl Buck for her novels about China.
[00:51.57]She knew the country and its people very well. For nearly 40 years, China was her home.
[01:00.65]Pearl's parents were Caroline and Absalom Sydenstricker.
[01:06.76]They were religious workers in China.
[01:09.97]Pearl's education began at home.
[01:13.93]Her mother taught her many of the things she would have learned in an American school. 
[01:21.07]A Chinese teacher taught Pearl other subjects.
[01:25.15]In 1910, Pearl went back to the United States to study philosophy at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia.
[01:38.74]After graduation, she returned to China. 
[01:43.45]Three years later, she met John Lossing Buck.
[01:47.75]He was a religious worker who studied agriculture.
[01:53.33]They were married and moved to a small village in the north of China. 
[01:59.64]Their life among the poorest people provided the subject matter for many of the books she later wrote.
[02:09.28]The Good Earth is the story of a poor Chinese man named Wang Lung. 
[02:16.65]His wife is O-Lan. They work very hard together and finally make enough money to buy some land for a farm.
[02:27.56]After a time, they grow enough crops to feed their family well, with some left over to sell.
[02:37.14]Their lives get much better, and they are happy.
[02:41.46]But the good times do not last.
[02:45.28]Pearl Buck wrote her first books about China at a time when most people in the world knew almost nothing about the Chinese way of life.
[02:58.73]After almost 40 years in China, the writer moved back to the United States. 
[03:06.04]She bought Green Hills Farm in eastern Pennsylvania. 
[03:10.83]She began to write articles for newspapers and magazines. 
[03:16.34]She expressed her opinions on war, politics, religion, equal rights for all people and many other subjects.
[03:27.75]She also gave many speeches. Buck talked to young people about the importance of a good education.
[03:37.50]She also told them they needed to know more about other people around the world.
[03:44.64]Pearl Buck died in 1973 at the age of 80.
[03:51.66]I'm John Russell.