Pearl S. Buck, Japan, and Its People

Abstract In 1934, Itaru Nii, the translator of the Japanese edition of The Good Earth (1935; 大地 = Daichi ), published an article about Pearl S. Buck, “Literature and Literature of Correspondence: Visiting Nanjing,” in a Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun (Nii 1934, 9). Her novel became a bestseller, which prompted Nii to go to Nanjing “to speak with Pearl Buck, the author of The Good Earth. ” However, when he went to Nanjing, he found that Buck had returned to the United States on vacation. He was told this by Mr. McDaniel of the Nanjing correspondent of The New York Times (Nii 1934, 9). Since Nii could not meet Buck, he had to go back to Shanghai, where he recently arrived from Japan, and searched for Buck’s works in bookstores. Then he found “a truly staggering number of books on display, including The Good Earth , which had been the number one bestseller in the United States in previous years, as well as The Mother , The First Wife , The Young Revolutionist , and so on” (Nii 1934, 9). Nii’s article provided a great deal of information about Pearl Buck for Japanese readers who knew nothing about her. He wrote that she was an American female writer who lived in China. He added that there were also many copies of Buck’s works in Shanghai, including The Good Earth , which was a number one bestseller in the United States. Globally, it appealed to readers who wanted to learn more about China. The Japanese were particularly interested in stories about the lives of Chinese farmers. Stories about Buck, her life, and her works continue to appear in the Japanese press, and by the end of 2022, Japan’s three major newspapers had published 568 articles on Buck. This ongoing interest in Buck is not only due to her literary works, such as The Good Earth , but also to her involvement in significant activities in Japan during the last 20 years of her life. This article traces the history of how Buck became a Japan expert in her later years, through her interactions with Japanese people and her social activities after the WWII. Buck came to Japan in 1960 after the war, but before that, many Japanese people had read books and articles about her in newspapers and magazines, and many had written letters to her, establishing exchanges with her across the Pacific Ocean.