CULTURED PEARL

In his article on Pearl Buck (July 12), James C. Thomson Jr. implies a sexist slant from the “cultural establishment” on the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Buck in 1938: “How could this upstart China missionary wife have won something overdue to Theodore Dreiser and other acclaimed male authors?”

Because just eight years before they had awarded the Nobel Prize to another American male novelist, Sinclair Lewis (the next American to win the award would be William Faulkner in 1949).

Whenever I look over the list of the Nobel-winning authors and I come across Pearl Buck’s name, I always feel a twinge of regret because to me, it represents the fact that Willa Cather, our country’s greatest female writer, was never so honored.

RICK SANFORD

LOS ANGELES