Monday, December 10, 2007

Pearl Buck Nobel Anniversary

Pearl S. Buck portrait, from Wikipedia

This Day in West Virginia History commemorates Hillsboro's favorite daughter, Pearl S. Buck. On December 10, 1938, West Virginia native Pearl S. Buck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for her book The Good Earth.

Stockholm, Dec. 10 - (AP) - In a brilliant ceremony in the flower-decked great hall of the Stockholm concert house, Mrs. Pearl Buck, American writer, tonight formally received from King Gustaf of Sweden the 1938 Nobel prize for literature.

Nine members of the Swedish royal family, the entire diplomatic corps and outstanding representatives of Sweden's cultural and scientific bodies looked on as the 80-year old monarch handed Mrs. Buck a parchment certificate bound in tooled leather, the Nobel medal and a check for an amount equal in American money to about $37,975.

An Italian professor, Enrico Fermi, winner of the Nobel prize for physics, was the only other prize-winner attending the presentation.

Earlier in the day in Oslo, Judge Michael Hansson of the Nansen international office for refugees, an arm of the League of Nations, accepted the Nobel peace prize on behalf of the Nansen office.

I've got some Pearl S. Buck quotes and biographical notes at Literary Pocahontas County. I've also quoted her on Civil War era textile skills in Pocahontas County and knitting, missionaries, and feminism.

2 comments:

Gary Albright said...

Pearl Buck did not win the Nobel Prize for her novel "The Good Earth." She won it for the complete body of her works up to that point, including her biographies of her parents, "The Exile" and "The Fighting Angel." These last two works were cited by the Nobel award committee as among her greatest works.

Rebecca Clayton said...

That's correct--as I have said in other posts. The statement is a quote from the West Virginia Division of History and Culture website (see link.)