Wendell Berry, the Kentucky novelist, essayist, poet and farmer, died at 92 on August 31, 2026. Berry spent decades championing small family farms and the environment, arguing that modern agribusiness "preys upon and slowly destroys local communities" and urging practices that "preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil." Readers and writers are posting his poems and essays, including "The Peace of Wild Things," the novel Jayber Crow, and the essay The Unsettling of America. Berry intervened publicly on environmental fights in Kentucky, opposing mountaintop removal mining, and served as a longtime supporter and guiding elder of The Land Institute, which develops perennial grain systems. Obituaries and social-media posts describe him as a model farmer and a central voice for agrarian values; many readers say they are revisiting his work and citing his critiques of industrial agriculture.
