The celebrated writer published over 50 books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, centered on agriculture and the natural world

NEED TO KNOW

• Author and environmental activist Wendell Berry has died at age 92
• Berry was the author of over 50 books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, including the 1977 book The Unsettling of America
• Berry received the National Humanities Medal in 2011

Author and activist Wendell Berry has died.

The writer, whose prolific body of work uplifted agriculture and the natural world, died on Monday, Aug. 31 at his home in Port Royal, Ky., his daughter, Mary, confirmed. Berry was 92.

Berry was born on Aug. 5, 1934 in Louisville, Ky., into a family of tobacco farmers. He studied creative writing at Stanford University, under the guidance of novelist Wallace Stegner, and English at the University of Kentucky. Berry taught at New York University for two years. 

At age 30, the writer returned to Kentucky with his wife, Tanya, whom he married in 1957. The couple and their children, Mary and Pryor, moved to Lanes Landing farm, with Berry teaching at the University of Kentucky. Lanes Landing became the setting in which Berry would write his books.

Berry’s 1977 book, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, became one of his most well-known publications. A critique of industrial agriculture, the book is seen as a crucial text in modern environmentalism and sustainable farming movements.

Throughout his career, Berry wrote over 50 books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, largely focused on the importance of family farms and the environment. His essay collections included 1981’s The Gift of Good Land and 1987’s Home Economics. 

“To live and work attentively in a diverse landscape such as this one — made up of native woodlands, pastures, croplands, ponds and streams — is to live from one revelation to another, things unexpected, always of interest, often wonderful,” Berry said in a 2012 interview with Dissent Magazine. “After a while, you understand that there can be no end to this. The place is essentially interesting, inexhaustibly beautiful and wonderful.”

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Berry also published over a dozen novels and short story collections, many centered on the fictional Kentucky town of Port William and its residents. His debut book and novel, Nathan Coulter, was published in 1960, with novels like The Memory of Old Jack (1974) arriving in later years. Berry’s most recent short story collection, How It Went, was published in 2022.

Berry’s celebrated poetry collections included The Broken Ground (1964) and The Country of Marriage (1973).

Berry was recognized nationally for his activism. In 2011, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama, the highest honor for humanitarian services in the United States. That same year, the Berry Foundation was established. The nonprofit organization utilizes Berry’s work in the real world, “by advocating for farmers, land-conserving communities and healthy regional economies,” per their website.

Berry’s literary accolades included the Ivan Sandroff Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him by the National Book Critics Circle in 2016. 

“Wendell Berry has been long occupied by the art of freedom and the idea of freedom in community. He was a writer deeply involved in the complex matters of ethics and consequence. No one dealt more carefully with the arts of Christian love and hope and family,” Jack Shoemaker, Berry’s editor at Counterpoint Press, said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.

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“Living in our time, he constantly saw a need to ask, ‘Sure we can do that, but should we? What do we do with the consequences?’” Shoemaker continued. “A remarkable poet, he was also one of the greatest living masters of American prose. His style advances the work of Emerson, Thoreau, Melville and Crane, listens to Twain and admires Stegner, and ignores almost entirely Hemingway and his modernist cohorts.”

Counterpoint publisher and COO Alyson Forbes added: “In a world that feels under siege, Wendell’s writing asks us to slow down, to focus on community and to think seriously about what we owe each other as fellow humans. Few writers have held so steadily to a single, clear-eyed vision across decades. We are grateful that we were able to help carry his words to readers.”

Berry is survived by his family, including his wife, children, sisters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

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