Author, humanitarian, philanthropist. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. She was born Pearl Sydenstricker in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents were missionaries and she spent her youth in China. She learned to speak Chinese before she could speak English. After being educated by her mother and by a Chinese, Buck was sent to a boarding school in Shanghai at the age of fifteen. She continued her education in the United States at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia, where she studied psychology. After graduating in 1914 she returned to China as a teacher for the Presbyterian Board of Missions. She married Dr. John Lossing Buck, an agricultural expert, devoted to his work. Buck worked as a teacher and interpreter for her husband and traveled through the countryside. In the 1920 she moved to Nanking, where she taught English and American literature at the university. In 1924 she returned to the United States to seek medical care for he first daughter who was mentally retarded. The Bucks went back to China in 1927. During the civil war they were evacuated to Japan and never returned to China. In 1935 Buck divorced her first husband and married her publisher Richard Walsh, with whom she moved to Pennsylvania. As a writer Buck started with the novel “East wind-West wind”. Her novel “The good earth” appeared in 1931. The book gained wide audience and was made into a motion picture. In 1936 she was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1938 she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. In her books one of the major themes was interracial love. Some of her books: “The patriot”, “The Chinese novel”, “The angry wife”, “The child who never grew”, “The hidden flower”, “Command the morning”. She also wrote five novels under the name John Sedges. Her family included nine adopted children as well as her biological daughters. (bio by: Jelena)  Family links:  Parents:  Absalom Sydenstricker (1852 – 1931)  Caroline Maude Stulting Sydenstricker (1857 – 1921)  Spouses:  John Lossing Buck (1890 – 1975)*  Richard John Walsh (1886 – 1960)*  Children:  Caroline Grace Buck (1920 – 1992)*  Siblings:  Edgar Sydenstricker (1881 – 1936)*  Pearl S. Buck (1892 – 1973)  Clyde Sydenstricker (1893 – 1899)*  Grace Sydenstricker Yaukey (1899 – 1994)* *Calculated relationship