“Dragon Seed”: Two Takeaways

Pearl S. Buck’s “Dragon Seed” was published in 1942, wartime around the globe. Its setting is farm area and villages around Nanking in 1937 during the time of the Japanese invasion of China. Its people are largely simple folk, many of whom cannot read, who have had passed down to them the working farmlands of their forebears. They are being tested by a vicious, rapacious and predatory enemy that is entirely new to their existence. Buck knows these farmers and villagers well because she spent her childhood in China with her missionary parents, and lived among them for many years on and off. She was homeschooled there, including by her mother, and learned to speak in both in English and Chinese. She is likely not best known for “Dragon Seed.” Perhaps better known for “The Good Earth…