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The Day Pearl Buck and the Nobel Committee Shocked the World

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 19881222
Author:James C. Thomson Jr.

Fifty years ago this month, the Swedish Academy shocked the American literary establishment by awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to Pearl S. Buck. The Nobel Committee had not only passed over such obvious candidates as Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson; it had given the world's highest accolade to a former missionary and a woman. As Robert Frost remarked, "If she can get it, anybody can."

In China, where Pearl Buck had lived for most of her 46 years, the response among Chinese intellectuals was cool for a different reason. By what right could a white-faced female win ...

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