Overview
- The first book-length monograph on Pearl Buck’s fiction since Kang Liao
- Places Buck in the literary context by English authors to identify his relation to 20th century Chinese writers
- Undertakes a serious study of Buck’s novels set in America, including those published under a male pseudonym
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book, the first single-authored book-length study of Buck’s fiction for over twenty years, shows how Buck’s thought developed through the medium of her fiction - from her early turbulent years in China to her last lonely days in the United States, with chapters examining her loss of faith in Christianity, her reflections on Chinese life during and after the breakdown of Old China, her voluminous reading, her confrontation with the horrors of American racism and sexism after her return to the United States, and her final metaphorical search for home as she approached death. The book argues that Buck, the first American woman to win both the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes for literature, was a heroic forerunner of those who, while occupying a place in the world, never feel fully at home there; in Buck’s case because her Chinese identity throughout her life struggled with her American. For this reason Pearl S. Buck’s fiction deserves to be considered alongside that ofwriters such as Anchee Min, Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. The book’s central claim is that Buck is a major novelist, capable of speaking to the distress of our times, richly deserving the honor she has received in China, and deserving greater recognition in the United States.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Pearl S. Buck’s Novels of China and America
Book Subtitle: The Battle of Life
Authors: Rob Hardy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3556-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-16-3555-7Published: 31 August 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-16-3558-8Published: 01 September 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-981-16-3556-4Published: 30 August 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXV, 165
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Literature, general, Asian Literature, North American Literature, Asian Culture