“Back there in the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever.And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time.”

American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer

Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer, closely associated with rural Kentucky. He is known for writing across fiction, poetry, and essays about agrarian life, rural community, and the ties between people, land, and work. His agrarian ideas appear strongly in essays such as The Unsettling of America and The Gift of Good Land. He also returned often to the imagined world of Port William in novels and stories including A Place on Earth, Jayber Crow, and That Distant Land, where the culture and economy of rural life are central.