This impactful biography explores the formative years of Pearl Buck, an American writer who made Chinese culture comprehensible to the Western world. Hilary Spurling unveils the compelling journey of Buck, a child of missionaries, as she navigates the intricate tapestry of early 20th-century China—an era of revolutions, war, and transformation. Speaking Chinese before English, Buck's unique upbringing, marked by the Boxer Rebellion and subsequent turmoil, cultivated her profound understanding of and connection to China, despite her distinctly foreign appearance. 'Burying The Bones' delves into Buck's witnessing of societal shifts and her own pivotal role as a literary bridge between the East and West, ultimately revealing how she changed Western perceptions with her books like 'The Good Earth' and won the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming an icon for Chinese American writers that followed.