Pearl S. Buck Pearl S. Buck Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973; also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu; ) was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in Zhenjiang, China. Her novel "The Good Earth" was the best-selling fiction book in the United States 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". She was the first
Chinese name Chinese name Chinese personal names are pet names used by those from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora overseas. Due to China's historical dominance of East Asian culture, many names used in Korea and Vietnam are adaptations of Chinese names, or have historical roots in Chinese, with appropriate adaptation to accommodate linguistic differences. Modern Chinese names consist of a surname known as xing (, "xìng"), which comes first and is usually but not always monosyllabic, followed by a personal name called ming (, "míng"), which is nearly always mono- or disyllabic. Prior to the 20th century,