The hidden wound

About this book

One of the most touching and true personal testaments concerned with our country's racial dilemma. Poet, writer and cultural critic Wendell Berry confronts the facts, the origins, and the results of a white Kentuckian's attitude toward black people. In the process, he has much to say to all people about the human condition. Berry grew up in Kentucky where his family have farmed for generations and where he now lives on a small farm. He has the imagination and honesty to observe clearly, to penetrate appearances, to discover the facts, and the grace to write of his discoveries with beauty and wisdom. In explaining the urgent need out of which this book is written Berry has said: "l should write something of my history as a white man, the sense of my whiteness forming out of and in the presence of black people." Then he describes his family history in relation to slavery and his childhood friendship with two black people on his grandfather's farm as a path toward understanding the deep trouble we have brought on ourselves through racial injustice and our abuse of the land. With compassion, without bitterness, Berry reaches some very disturbing truths--truths which must be faced if we are to find our way back to what our country once promised the world.--From publisher description.