In 1925, in a prophetic analysis written immediately after Sun Yat-sen’s death, Pearl Buck foresaw China’s future as a 21st century superpower, diagnosed an astonishing degree of ignorance about her in the West, and advised America that it would be a serious mistake to continue to underrate China. Her propositions were discounted and her reputation discredited in her lifetime and afterwards in both the US and China (where she became a Public Enemy under Mao).
This talk marks the ceremonial opening of the restored Pearl Buck House in Nanjing – the first official Chinese recognition of the unique role she played in relations between China and the West.
Born in 1940 and educated at Somerville College, Oxford University, Hilary Spurling has written biographies of Ivy Compton-Burnett, Paul Scott and Sonia Orwell along with Henri Matisse in two volumes, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times biography prize in 2005. It has since been translated into many languages, including Japanese and Russian with a Chinese version on the way. Spurling’s latest book, Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China, won the James Tait Black Prize last year. She is a CBE, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Hon. Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund, and founder of the RLF Writers Fellowship scheme.
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