Writer Pearl S. Buck Focus On Details Pushed Her Prose To The Top Of The Literary World.(A)

Byline: Nancy Gondo

Most authors hope to get picked for the Book-of-the-Month Club, as it can help boost sales. But when Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth" was chosen in 1931, she had no idea what it meant.

Buck (1892-1973) was so focused on writing about China that she didn't let herself get sidetracked by popular American culture or popularity contests withother writers. She'd spent most of her first 30 years in China, and was still there trying to learn all she could about the peasants.

Her name became well known in America, and even worldwide, soon after the honor. "The Good Earth," a story about a poor Chinese farmer's life, became thebest-selling title of 1931 and 1932. It earned her a Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1932. Over the next four decades, 14 of her other books were picked by the club.

Years spent gathering stories from those around her, honing her writing skills and working hard helped Buck win the 1938 Nobel Prize in literature. Shebecame the first American woman to do so.

Though Buck was born in West Virginia, her missionary parents took her to China when she was just three months old. They believed in living and working with the natives, rather than at mission quarters. This helped shape Buck's writing in later years -- she often wrote about the oppressed and abused Chinese peasants.

As a child, one of Buck's favorite pastimes was listening to stories. Her Chinese nurse entertained her with Buddhist and Taoist tales, her father often related his adventures in remote parts of China and her mother told her storiesabout her relatives in America, as well as the Civil War.