In the small southern town of Chin-kiang, two young girls from very different worlds collide and become inseparable companions. Willow is hardened by poverty and fearful for her future; Pearl is the daughter of a Christian missionary who desperately wishes she was Chinese too. Neither could have foreseen the transformation of the little American girl embarrassed by her blonde hair into the Nobel Prize-winning writer and one of China's modern heroines, Pearl S. Buck. When the country erupts in civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, Pearl and Willow are brutally reminded of their differences. Pearl's family is forced to flee the country and Willow is punished for her loyalty to her 'cultural imperialist' friend. And yet, in the face of everything that threatens to tear them apart, the paths of these two women remain intimately entwined.

A young Chinese woman falls in love with a Jewish man in nineteenth-century China in this evocative novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth. In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family’s son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another, they face strong opposition from every side. Tradition forbids the marriage, and the family already has a rabbi’s daughter in mind for David. Long celebrated for its subtle and even-handed treatment of colliding traditions, Peony is an engaging coming-of-age story about love, identity, and the tragedy and beauty found at the intersection of two disparate cultures. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

The timeless Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece following a humble farmer’s journey through 1920s China returns with this beautifully repackaged edition that celebrates its nearly ninety years as an American classic. Travel to 1920s China, a time when the last emperor still ruled and the sweeping changes of the twentieth century were distant rumblings, with this timeless, evocative classic tale of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his family as they struggle to survive in the midst of vast political and social upheavals. Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions, and rewards. “A comment upon the meaning and tragedy of life as it is lived in any age in any quarter of the globe” (The New York Times), this brilliant novel—beloved by millions—is a universal tale of an ordinary family caught in the tide of history.

From the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth: The New York Times–bestselling novel of a Chinese-American family separated by war. Elizabeth and Gerald MacLeod are happily married in China, bringing up their young son, Rennie. But when war breaks out with Japan, Gerald, who is half-Chinese, decides to send his wife and son back to America while he stays behind. In Vermont, Elizabeth longingly awaits his letters, but the Communists have forbidden him from sending international mail. Over time, both the silences and complications grow more painful: Gerald has taken up a new love and teenager Rennie struggles with his mixed-race heritage in America. Rich with Buck’s characteristic emotional wisdom, Letter from Peking focuses on the ordeal of a family split apart by race and history. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

Four Chinese-American siblings make an emotional journey to their ancestral home in this novel from the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good Earth. Dr. Liang is a comfortably well-off professor of Confucian philosophy who fled China because of the government’s crackdown on intellectuals. Now, settled in 1940s New York, he believes in the notion of a pure and unchanging homeland. Under his influence, Liang’s four grown children make the momentous decision to move to China, despite having spent their whole lives in the United States. But as the siblings try in various ways to adjust to a new place and culture, they learn that the definition of home is far different from what they expected. Kinfolk is the involving story of an American family and literary fiction of the highest order. The New York Times–bestselling author of Dragon Seed, China Sky, and many other novels, explores the complexities of immigration, multiculturalism, nationality, and the primordial human longing to find our roots. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.