Juliette Binoche heads to China and Prague for Pearl

Buck, who also became known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu, was an American writer who – as the daughter of missionaries – spent much of her young life in China. Her best-selling novel The Good Earth, which depicts peasant life in a Chinese village, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932, six years before she won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Once back in the U.S. in the mid-1930s, she became a vocal and influential supporter of women’s rights and minority groups, while championing Asian and mixed-race adoption.

According to Variety, the film will use locations including Shanghai, Zhejiang Province and Prague with shooting due to begin next year. Leehom Wang and Jing Tian co-star; Roxanne Messina Captor directs, with finance coming in from the China Film Group.