Pearl Buck in China (2010) by Hilary Spurling is a biography of Nobel Prize–winning author Pearl S. Buck, focusing on her formative years in China and how they shaped her worldview and writing. Drawing on extensive primary and secondary sources, Spurling portrays Buck as a resilient observer of war, poverty, and social injustice, experiences that infused her work with insight into themes often dominated by male writers. Born in 1892 near Shanghai to American missionary parents, Buck grew up speaking Chinese, reading its classics, and witnessing both beauty and hardship. Her later move to the United States was marked by cultural isolation, yet her unique background became a source of strength, helping her rise to prominence as the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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