Nobel Prize Speech.
Annotated
Buck, Pearl S. Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. [n.d., but 1938].
Eight corrected typescript leaves, nine pages, occasionally creased; 5 ¼ x 6 ¾ inches; clearly torn from larger leaves; staple holes in the upper left hand corners, and paperclip rust stain on one leaf. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
A heavily corrected four-page draft, and a five-page lightly altered final version of Buck’s speech; both copies have her penciled annotations. Buck delivered this speech at the Nobel banquet at City Hall in Stockholm, on December 10, 1938; the final version reads, word for word, as transcribed in Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967. Buck was awarded the prize "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces" (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1938/index.html).
The four-page draft has extensive emendations; the pages are numbered 1, 2, 3 and A.2., and page one is marked “(first draft)” at the top. Buck adds a salutation, “Your royal highnesses, excellencies, members of the Swedish Acad. Ladies and Gentlemen,” in pencil at the top of the first page, which is incorporated into the final version as “Your Royal Highnesses/Ladies and Gentlemen”; she decided to omit the phrases, “Excellencies/Members of the Swedish Academy and of the Nobel Foundation,” and she crossed those words out in pencil. The rest of the draft has word changes and punctuation corrections throughout; and she adds several words to sentences that become incorporated into the final version. Page one of the draft reads “I can only hope that these [many] books which I have yet to write will be in some measure an worthier acknowledgement [than I can make today.]” (Brackets and strikethroughs indicate changes she made and words she added by hand.) The final version reads, “I can only hope that the many books which I have yet to write will been in some measure a worthier acknowledgement than I can make tonight.”
On the second page of the draft, she omits the last three lines of the first paragraph, and writes “A” above her cross-out, indicating that she intended to add the words she wrote on page A.2 to the end of that paragraph, and more changes are visible between draft and final version: “You who have already so recognized your own Selma Lagerlöf, [and other women in writing and other fields] cannot perhaps quite understand what it means to American women that it is a woman who stands here at this moment” (draft); in the final version this becomes, “You who have already so recognized your own Selma Lagerlöf, and have long recognized other women in writing and in other fields, cannot perhaps wholly understand what it means in many countries to American women that it is a woman who stands here at this moment” (final). Lagerlöf was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1909.
Buck begins her speech with gratitude at having been awarded the prize, “with the conviction of having received far beyond what I have been able to give in my books” (1). She accepts the award as an American and as a woman, explaining, “we are a people still young and we know that we have not yet come to the fullest of our powers. This award, given to an American, strengthens not only one, but the whole body of American writers, who are encouraged and heartened by such generous recognition” (2-3). She continues, “But I speak not only for writers and for women, but for all Americans, for we all share in this” (3). Buck also acknowledges the influence and importance of China in her life; praising, “I have never admired China more than I do now, when I see her uniting as she has never before, against the enemy who threatens her freedom. With this determination for Freedom, which is in so profound a sense the essential quality of her nature, I know that she is unconquerable” (4-5).
The final two sentences of the draft read, “Freedom – it is today more than ever the most precious human possession. [Sweden and the United States of America] We have it still, My (sic) country [is] young – but it greets you with a peculiar fellowship, you whose earth is ancient and free” (draft, 3). The final draft concludes, “Freedom – it is today more than ever the most precious human possession. We – Sweden and the United States – we have it still. My country is young – but it greets you with a peculiar fellowship, you whose earth is ancient and free” (final, 5).
The final draft has a few scattered pencil notations (as indicated by brackets in the quoted sentences); the most lengthy of which are in the salutation, and in the paragraph in which she addresses being an American woman recipient of the award.
Buck (1892-1973) was born to Christian missionaries in West Virginia; when she was three months old, her parents brought her to China, where she grew up. An only child, Buck spoke Chinese before she learned English, and was literarily influenced by her Chinese nurse, who told her folk tales. When she was still a teenager she was published in the English-language Shanghai Mercury. She attended school at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College – the first time she returned to the United States since she was born – where she wrote for the college newspaper. In 1915, she married John Lossing Buck, with whom she had two children (one was adopted). In 1935, she divorced Buck and married her publisher, John Day, with whom she adopted eight more children.
Buck wrote first book, East Wind: West Wind, in 1925 and published it in 1930. The Good Earth, her second book, which took her three months to write, was published one year later, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Buck went on to publish nearly a book – and sometimes two – a year, until her death (and even after!). These include the lauded biographies of her each of her parents, The Exile (about her mother) and The Fighting Angel (about her father), both published in 1936; as well as A House Divided (1935), The Patriot (1939), Dragon Seed (1942), American Unity and Asia (1942), Pearl Buck Speaks for Democracy (1942), China Flight (1945), Command the Morning (1959), Children for Adoption (1965), To My Daughters, With Love (1967), China As I See It (1970), The Goddess Abides (1972), and China Past and Present (1972). She also wrote six plays, including, Flight into China (1939), The First Wife (1945) and A Desert Incident (1959).
In addition to her writing, Buck is known for her humanitarian works. She established Welcome House in 1949, which was the first interracial and international adoption agency; the Pearl S. Buck Foundation in 1964, to provide scholarship opportunities to students in Asian countries; and the Opportunity House Foundation in 1965, to support young victims of poverty and discrimination in Asia. All of these organizations continue to thrive today.
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http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1938/buck-speech.html
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1938/press.html
http://www.psbi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PSBI_AboutUs_History
Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2008. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
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