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 American literature Importance of Living" (1937), became best-sellers. Chinese American authors became more prolific and accepted after the lifting of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Authors who achieved success in the 1950s included C.Y. Lee (author), whose "The Flower Drum Song" was made into a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and Jade Snow Wong, author of Fifth Chinese Daughter. The 1970s saw further progress. Playwright Frank Chin's play, "The Chickencoop Chinaman" (1971) became the first play by an Asian American to be produced as a major New York production. Maxine Hong Kingston won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 for The Woman