'I am moved in two ways. He will have his own world to make. Being of neither East nor West purely, he will be rejected of each, for none will understand him.'
First published in 1932, East Wind, West Wind is a deeply moving and essential coming-of-age tale from the Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck.
Kwei-lan, a young Chinese woman, has always been taught to appease the values of her traditional upbringing; submit, surrender, do as one's told. Soon to enter a marriage arranged by her parents, she is surprised to learn that her husband-to-be has been educated abroad and upholds some Western ideals – ideals that she has been instructed for years to vehemently reject. But as the pair bond outside of the family home, Kwei-lan's beliefs around tradition, modernity and morality start to morph into something new altogether. Sensitively written and a fascinating insight into Chinese culture in the early twentieth century, East Wind, West Wind is a profound exploration of cross-cultural ideology, and remains one of Buck's greatest literary achievements.
Pearl S. Buck (1892 – 1973) was an American author and humanitarian. Brought up in a missionary household in Zhenjiang, much of her written work focussed on Chinese village life. In 1932, Buck won the Pulitzer Prize with her novel The Good Earth, and in 1938, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
