Hannah is the eponymous narrator of Wendell Berry’s novel Hannah Coulter, which is set in the small fictional town of Port William in rural Kentucky. The storyline is simple: Hannah, now an old woman, gives an account of her life. Though her narrative focuses on her day-to-day life, eternity is her most constant theme. For Hannah, the daily and the eternal are in no tension with each other, so long as she is thankful and looks on everything in love.

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Cover image: “View of Benjamin Reber’s Farm,” by Charles C. Hofmann, 1872. Courtesy National Gallery of Art.

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