Pearl S. Buck's China: Tea with Anchee Min
Raised in the height of the Cultural Revolution, Anchee Min was taught to denounce Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Good Earth. Buck, who lived in China and is known for her depictions of Chinese life prior to communism, was considered by Mao-era China to be a Western infiltrator. In 1984, after years on a brutal labor camp and a stint as an actress in a propaganda film produced by Madame Mao, Min fled to the United States, where she taught herself English and finally read Pearl S. Buck. The result is her novel Pearl of China, a celebration of Buck through the eyes of a fiercely loyal friend, Willow Yee. Over tea at the Asia Society, Min discusses what it means to rediscover a writer deemed an enemy, and what it means for all of us to write in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution. Purchase your tickets here: https://tickets.asiasociety.org/public/daily_events_list.asp.
Raised in the height of the Cultural Revolution, Anchee Min was taught to denounce Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Good Earth. Buck, who lived in China and is known for her depictions of Chinese life prior to communism, was considered by Mao-era China to be a Western infiltrator. In 1984, after years on a brutal labor camp and a stint as an actress in a propaganda film produced by Madame Mao, Min fled to the United States, where she taught herself English and finally read Pearl S. Buck. The result is her novel Pearl of China, a celebration of Buck through the eyes of a fiercely loyal friend, Willow Yee. Over tea at the Asia Society, Min discusses what it means to rediscover a writer deemed an enemy, and what it means for all of us to write in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution. Purchase your tickets here: https://tickets.asiasociety.org/public/daily_events_list.asp.
