# Vale, Wendell Berry

> Celebrated American author Wendell Berry passed away on 31 August 2026. He was 92.

By Jonathan Foye · 11 September 2026 · News / World News

Canonical: https://insights.uca.org.au/articles/vale-wendell-berry/

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Celebrated American author Wendell Berry passed away on 31 August 2026. He was 92.

His daughter May Berry confirmed his death, telling the Associated Press, “There’s not enough I could say about him to do him justice.”

Berry was[**the author of more than 40 books**](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/01/wendell-berry-us-author-dead)**.** While he was not a systematic theologian, his work intersected themes of faith, justice, and rural life. He influenced many religious leaders and was well regarded across the divides of religion and politics.

A leading advocate of environmental stewardship, his work is revered in ecotheology.

“You might recognize his belief system in what’s known as creation care today,” wrote Kristy Nabhan-Warren[**in** ***the Conversation***](https://theconversation.com/farmer-poet-wendell-berrys-environmental-ethics-were-deeply-rooted-in-his-christian-faith-and-belief-in-caring-for-creation-291025).

“It embraces a responsibility to care for the Earth and all its creatures. Berry increasingly saw that ethic violated by the industrialization of agriculture and ignored by a dominionist theology, preached by some prominent American Christians, which holds that humans have a God-given right to exploit the Earth’s resources.”

Although Berry never won a Pulitzer prize, he was a celebrated author, with a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle. In 2011, [**he received the National Humanities Medal**](https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/earthbeat/eco-catholic/wendell-berry-receives-award-white-house)from President Barak Obama at the White House.

Berry lived a simple life, without computers, television, or phones.

“And so I go into the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably, almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place,” wrote Berry.

“I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces. I feel my life take its place among the lives – the trees, the annual plants, the animals and birds, the living of all these and the dead – that go and have gone to make the life of the earth.”

*Insights sends condolences to Wendell Berry**’**s family, friends, and readers.*

**Jonathan Foye is a freelance journalist and academic. He is the author of *[Freedom and Faith](https://www.amazon.com.au/Freedom-Faith-Wrestling-Beyond-Green-ebook/dp/B0GTBQDJBT).***