It's all Berry Interesting...

Wendell Berry is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, and a farmer. Berry was born in 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky amidst the turmoil of the Great Depression. Berry grew up on a fifth generation tobacco farm in rural Kentucky. He grew up working on the farm with his family. Berry's mother was  a huge reader, which helped to spark Berry's interest in literature. He went to Millersburg Military Instituted and the University of Kentucky with a BA and MS in English. At UK, he met his wife Tanya Amyx, who he had two children with. After university, Berry went on to become a fellow at Stanford's creative writing program. Berry was recognized as a Guggenheim Fellow and lived in Tuscany for a year working along many great writers. After his time away, he worked as a professor at NYU for two years before returning back to Kentucky to work as a farmer. While on the farm, Berry wrote many novels, poems, short stories, and essays. Berry's first novel, Nathan Coulter, a book about a young boy coming of age, was published in 1960. Most of Berry's work reflected the ideal that one's work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place. Berry felt akin to people who showed their connection to their home through their works, like Henry Thoreau and his good pal Harry Caudil. Some of Barry's major themes included the ingenuity of nature, respect for locals and local knowledge, and a deep Christian appreciation for our obligations to each other. Barry was also wary of technology and how it would ultimately destroy our connection with nature.

Berry's farmer life definitely helped him to develop his ideas for his literary works as well as form his ideas on life. Berry was an activist for the peace and the environment, writing letters and articles for papers against the Vietnam War and the installation of a nuclear power plant in Indiana. Berry also wrote activist papers to the Bush administration after 9/11 and how they should handle National Security. Berry continues to write today about how the world is at risk to modernization. Berry also continues to join in on protests for the environment and even cut ties with the University of Kentucky in order to continue to protest the coal industry. Berry is very true to himself which makes his writing very interesting and more convincing than most other writers of any time period.

Berry has formed the Berry Center in Kentucky "for the purpose of bringing focus, knowledge and cohesiveness to the work of changing our ruinous industrial agriculture system into a system and culture that uses nature as the standard, accepts no permanent damage to the ecosphere, and takes into consideration human health in local communities." (Wikipedia). Much of Berry's activism has been in the form of protest or through written work. He has had to face many different administrations with various ecological agendas. No matter the issue, he stuck true to his beliefs and fought for them before his own concern. The fact that Berry shows so much concern for the issues he fights against makes his writing hold more grip in the literary world. It was definitely interesting to learn this about him before reading through his essay about wildlife preservation.