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Pearl of China by Anchee Min

In a small southern town in china, during the last days of the nineteenth century, two girls bump heads and become best friends. Willow is the only child of a destitute family, while Pearl is headstrong and the daughter of zealous Christian missionaries. When civil war erupts, Pearl’s family is forced to flee the country ahead of angry mobs. She eventually grows up to become Pearl S Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning writer and activist and through everything her life remains intertwined with that of Willow.

Willow’s life in China isn’t easy either, as her friendship with Pearl sees her being punished despite being close to Mao’s inner circle, yet through love, loss, heartbreak, joy, exile and imprisonment, their close bonds remain.

While this book is based on the life of Pearl S Buck, a courageous and passionate woman who loved the country of her childhood, it is not entirely factual and is as much about loyalty and friendship as being a book about a historical figure. It tells of her life through the Chinese perspective of her friends in China so a fictional lifelong friend was chosen.

Growing up in China, Min herself was forced to denounce Pearl S Buck and it was only after she moved to the United States that she learned of Pearl’s love of china and the brainwashing she had been subjected to. Pearl of China is a compelling read, although sometimes reading more like a lecture than a narrative and containing some unexplained holes in the plot.

RRP $38.99
Published and distributed by Allen and Unwin under the Bloomsbury title
 

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