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Wendell Erdman Berry

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Wendell Erdman Berry

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1934-08-05 （Henry County, Kentucky, U.S.）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Religion
Christianity (personal/independent practice)
Residence History
Henry County, Kentucky (birthplace; Lane's Landing farm) → Lexington, Kentucky (University employment period) → New York, NY (taught at NYU) → Emmaus, Pennsylvania (Rodale, Inc. period)

Career

Occupations
novelist, poet, essayist, farmer, environmental activist, cultural critic, educator
Active Years
1956-
Affiliations
University of Kentucky (former faculty), Fellowship of Southern Writers (member), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Fellow), American Academy of Arts and Letters (member)
Memberships
Fellowship of Southern Writers (member), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Fellow), American Academy of Arts and Letters (member)
Influenced By
Wallace Stegner, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Merton
Influenced
Gary Snyder (poet and correspondent), Contemporary environmental and localist writers, Gurney Norman (Kentucky writer)

Education

University of Kentucky
College of Arts & Sciences (English) / English
Degree: BA
Period: 1952–1956
Year of Graduation: 1956
Country: United States
University of Kentucky
College of Arts & Sciences (English) / English
Degree: MA
Period: 1956–1957
Year of Graduation: 1957
Country: United States
Stanford University (Wallace Stegner Fellow)
Creative Writing Program / Creative writing
Period: 1958 (Stegner Fellowship)
Country: United States
Attended as a Wallace Stegner Fellow

Awards

Wallace Stegner Fellowship
1958
Organization: Stanford University
Result: 受賞
Guggenheim Fellowship
1961
Organization: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Result: 受賞
National Humanities Medal
2010
Organization: National Endowment for the Humanities
Result: 受賞
Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities
2012
Work: Jefferson Lecture and related essays
Organization: National Endowment for the Humanities
Result: 講演者
Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award
2013
Organization: Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Result: 受賞
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2013
Organization: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Result: 選出
Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame
2015
Organization: The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning
Result: 殿堂入り（初の存命作家として）
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
2016
Organization: National Book Critics Circle
Result: 受賞
Henry Hope Reed Award
2022
Organization: University of Notre Dame School of Architecture
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

1977 Nonfiction / Essays

A collection of essays critiquing industrial agriculture and arguing for sustainable farming, local economy, and the cultural value of place.

agriculturecommunitysustainabilityconnection to place

The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural

1981 Essays

Collections of essays on land, agriculture, and the ethics of community and work, reflecting on what constitutes a good life.

ethicshusbandrycommunity

Jayber Crow

2000 Fiction (Port William series)

A novel narrated by Jayber Crow, the barber of Port William, tracing his life, love, and commitment to the community; explores belonging and the costs of modernity.

belonginglovecommunitynostalgia

Hannah Coulter

2004 Fiction (Port William series)

An elderly Hannah recounts her life and the membership of Port William; a meditation on family, memory, and the loss accompanying agricultural change.

generationsmemorycommunity

Nathan Coulter

1960 Fiction

A coming-of-age novel about Nathan's maturation as he deals with family, loss, and belonging in his community.

coming-of-agefamilyrural life

This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013

2013 Poetry

A collected volume of Wendell Berry's Sabbath poems, meditating on land, spiritual practice, and everyday observation.

sabbath/rituallandattentive observation

Bibliography

  • Nathan Coulter
  • A Place on Earth
  • The Memory of Old Jack
  • The Unsettling of America
  • The Gift of Good Land
  • Jayber Crow
  • Hannah Coulter
  • This Day: Sabbath Poems
  • The Art of Loading Brush

Adaptations

  • The Unforeseen (documentary; includes Berry's poem narration)
  • Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry (2016 documentary)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
pastorallyricessayistic and ethical voiceconcise, place-rooted description
Recurring Motifs
land/placecommunity/membershipseasons and laborloss and fidelitysoil and husbandry

Legacy

Wendell Berry is a leading voice of modern agrarianism and localism in America; through his poetry, fiction, and essays he popularized thinking about agricultural ethics, local economies, and attachment to place. His influence extends into environmental movements and contemporary literature.

Museums

  • The Berry Center New Castle, Kentucky, U.S. Opened in 2011

Academic Societies

  • Fellowship of Southern Writers
  • American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • American Academy of Arts and Letters

Archives

  • Papers donated to the Kentucky Historical Society

In Popular Culture

  • Berry's poems and ideas featured in documentaries produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford
  • Numerous musical settings and choral works based on his poems

Quotes

  • I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war.
    Source: A Statement Against the War in Vietnam — Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft (1968) (1968)

Trivia

  • In 2015 he became the first living writer inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
  • He has farmed and written at his Lane's Landing farm in Kentucky for decades.
  • In 2009 he withdrew his papers from the University of Kentucky over its ties to the coal industry; the papers were later donated to the Kentucky Historical Society in 2012.