John Berger and the loss of rural culture

"After a successful career as an art critic and painter in post-war London, Berger decided to leave the UK and ended up in Quincy, a small town in the French Alps, close to Geneva. This is where author and poet Jorge Luis Borges is buried, a man for whom Berger felt great admiration, despite occupying the opposite end of the ideological spectrum."

"In fact, emigration was one of the themes that run through his short stories, novels, film scripts (he worked with Alain Tanner), poetry and essays, published either separately or within the same book, as in Pig Earth, the first volume of his Into Their Labors trilogy. This quote from the Gospel of St. John opens the book: Others have labored and ye are entered into their labors and it is worth remembering it now that we are in the Christmas season."

John Berger was a British writer and critic whose centenary falls in 2026, recognized as an original, committed, and influential intellectual of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He moved from post-war London to Quincy in the French Alps, where Jorge Luis Borges is buried. Berger left painting to pursue a hybrid, borderless practice across fiction, criticism, film, poetry, and essays. Emigration recurs as a theme across his short stories, novels, film scripts, poetry, and essays. He produced Pig Earth (1974–78) based on close observation of local peasants, aiming to tell the story of a class on the verge of disappearing. Berger combined heterodox Marxism with earthiness and a sense of transcendence.

Read at english.elpais.com