Sometimes recognition is a long time coming. Many notable American women have known what is it like to plug away in the shadowy recesses of anonymity. Pearl S. Buck, however, was hardly one of the anonymous --- at least not in America.

The daughter of missionaries stationed in the heart of China in the early 1900s, Buck grew up among the Chinese peasants; she spent most her first 40 years of life in the war-torn, poverty-stricken regions of this ancient land. By the 1930s Buck had returned to America and in 1931 published her first novel, the Pulitzer Prize winner THE GOOD EARTH. She went on to write several more novels about the people she knew well and loved, always with the hope of promoting a better understanding among Westerners about the history and cultures of the Eastern hemisphere. In 1938 she received the Nobel Prize (the first American woman to achieve this) for her collective efforts in enlightening the world to a way of life that few knew anything about. More than any other writer, Buck formed our perceptions of the Chinese people. Further on in life she was active in women's rights, civil rights, East-West relations, and she founded an orphan adoption program.

Why should we revisit the life and writings of this remarkable woman in this 21st century? For one very important reason. For over 50 years her novels have remained officially suppressed by the Chinese government. Her stories, rich in imagery and heartfelt emotion that plumbed the core of Chinese beliefs and social custom, were censored from the very people about whome she so proudly wrote. That is all about to change.

This May, another of Pearl Buck's novels will come to the silver screen, but with one notable difference --- PAVILION OF WOMEN was produced and filmed by the Beijing film company in a history-making collaboration with Universal Pictures and it will be released to both Chinese and American audiences. It's director is Chinese, as are the bulk of the cast members. The filming was done entirely in Suzhou, China. It remains to be seen whether screen writers did justice to her wonderful novel, but one thing is certain --- Pearl S. Buck has come home. And while her novels are still "officially" banned, there is a movement afoot to undo the wrong and bring her marvelous works to the generations of Chinese people that never had the privilege to know her. I say --- it's about time.

--- Ann Bruns

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