Wendell Berry

**Wendell E. Berry** (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, critic of culture, and farmer. He has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays.

He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and was given The National Humanities Medal. He was named to be the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013 he was given the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.

On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be added to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

## Personal life

Wendell Berry is the oldest of four children. His father was a lawyer and tobacco farmer in Henry County, Kentucky. The families of his parents had farmed in Henry County for more than 100 years.

He went to grade school in New Castle, Kentucky in the 1940s. He read stories of King Arthur's knights and Robin Hood. He also read books such as _The Swiss Family Robinson_, _Treasure Island_, _The Yearling,_ and _My Friend Flicka._

Berry went to high school at Millersburg Military Institute from 1948 to 1952. After that, he studied at the University of Kentucky. By 1957 he got his Master of Arts degree. He married his wife Tanya Amyx. And his first poem was printed in _Poetry_ magazine.

In 1958, he was in a writing class at Stanford University. He studied in a group that included other famous writers, such as Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, Ernest Gaines, and Ken Kesey. In this class Berry worked on his first novel, _Nathan Coulter_, which was printed in April 1960.

In 1961 he got some money that let him take his family to Italy and France for a year.  When he came back to the United States, he taught English from 1962 to 1964 at New York University. By 1965 he moved back to Kentucky with his family and taught writing at the University of Kentucky until 1977. During this time he published two novels, five books of poetry, and four books of essays.

Since 1977 he has lived with his family on Lanes Landing Farm outside of Port Royal, Kentucky. He has grown corn and small grain crops. He has a flock of sheep. He has written many books about living in a small community. He also writes about how farmers and all people should care for the land.

## Some Books by Wendell Berry

Most of Wendell Berry's writing is now printed by Counterpoint/Catapult in Berkeley, California.

### Fiction

- _Nathan Coulter_ (1960)
- _A Place on Earth_ (1967, 1983)
- _The Memory of Old Jack_ (1974)
- _That Distant Land: The Collected Stories_ (2004)
- _Jayber Crow_ (2000)
- _Hannah Coulter_ (2004)

### Non-Fiction

- _The Long-Legged House_ (1969)
- _The Hidden Wound_ (1970)
- _The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture_ (1977)
- _Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community_ (1992)
- _The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry_, edited by Norman Wirzba (2002)
- _Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy_ with photographs by James Baker Hall (2004)

### Poetry

- _New Collected Poems_ (2012)
- _This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979-2013_ (2013)

## Related pages

- List of poets from North America

## Other websites

- Wendell Berry at The Poetry Foundation
- Wendell Berry at The National Endowment for the Humanities
- The Berry Center
- Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky: Internet Resources
- Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: Wendell Berry
- **image**: A New Harvest, with Wendell Berry, Henry County, KY, 2011 - photograph by Guy Mendes (cropped).jpg
- **caption**: Berry in December 2011
- **birth place**: Eminence, Kentucky, U.S.
- **occupation**: Poet, farmer, writer, activism ,  activist, teacher
- **nationality**: American
- **genre**: Fiction, poetry, essays
- **subject**: agriculture, rural area ,  rural life, community
- **education**: University of Kentucky (B.A; M.A., English, 1957)