Here comes the short review on The Good Earth (1931) by Pearl S Buck:

It is the story of a peasant family in China in a times of famine, flood, and prosperity. A peasant Wang Lung who lives with his widowed father, marries O Lan, the homely former slave of a wealthy household. Through frugality and hard work they fare relatively better than other farmers in the village. However, as the weather turns disastrous for farming, the family (now grown to include the couple's three children) has to flee to the city to find work. They sold their meager possessions, but not the land- and took the train for the first time. While at the city, O Lan and the children beg and Wang Lung pulls a rickshaw. They found themselves aliens among their more metropolitan countrymen and foreigners. They no longer starved, but still lived like paupers: Wang Lung's work is barely able to pay for the rickshaw rental, and the family eats at public kitchens. Meanwhile, hostile political climate continues to worsen, and Wang Lung longs to return to the land. They were able to do so after a riot gives Wang Lung some wealth. Upon returning to their home the family fared better. With their money from the city Wang Lung is able to buy an ox, farm tools, and hires help. He is eventually able to send his sons to school, builds a new house and live comfortably.

The novel sold 1,800,000 copies in its first year. It has been translated into more than thirty languages and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1932. In the story Buck combines descriptions of marriage, parenthood, and complex human emotions with depictions of Chinese reverence for the land and for a specific way of life. The novel was followed by two sequels, Sons (1932), which focused on the youngest son, Wang the Tiger, and A House Divided (1935), which was Yuan's story. At her death Buck was working on 'The Red Earth', a further sequel to The Good Earth, presenting the modern-day descendants of that novel's characters.

Pearl S. Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) was a prolific writer and Nobel Prize winner. Born in Hillsboro, West Virginia to Carie (Stulting) and Absalom Sydenstricker, Buck went with her parents, southern Presbyterian missionaries, to Zhenjiang, China in 1892 when Buck was 3 months old. She was brought up there and first knew the Chinese language and customs, especially from Mr. Kong, and then was taught English by her mother and her teacher. She was encouraged to write at an early age. By 1910, she left for America and went to Randolph-Macon Woman's College, where she would earn her degree in 1914. She then returned to China, and married an agricultural economist, 1917. In 1921, she had a daughter, Carol, who was afflicted with phenylketonuria. The small family then moved to Nanjing, where Pearl taught English literature at University of Nanking. In 1925, the Bucks adopted Janice (later surnamed Walsh) and subsequently 8 more adoptees. In 1926, she left China and returned to the United States for a short time in order to earn her Master of Arts degree from Cornell University.

Buck began her writing career in 1930 with her first publication of East Wind:West Wind. In 1931 she wrote her best known novel, The Good Earth, which is considered to be one of the best of her many works. Her career would keep flourishing, and she won the William Dean Howells Medal in 1935. Pearl was forced to flee China in 1934 due to political tensions.