Book description
From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a
coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense
colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happiest years
on the farm and her experiences and friendships with the people around
her are vividly recalled in these memoirs.
Out of Africa
is the story of a remarkable and unconventional woman and of a way of
life that has vanished for ever.
ISAK DINESEN was the pen-name of
Karen Blixen, who was born in Rungsted, Denmark in 1885. After
studying art at Copenhagen, Paris and Rome, she married her cousin,
Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914. Together they went to Kenya to
manage a coffee plantation. After their divorce in 1921, she continued
to run the plantation until a collapse in the coffee market forced her
back to Denmark in 1931.
Although she had written occasional contributions to Danish
periodicals since 1905 (under the nom de plume of Osceola), her
real d but took place in 1934 with the publication of Seven Gothic
Tales, written in English under her pen-name. Out of Africa
(1937) is an autobiographical account of the years she spent in Kenya.
Most of her subsequent books were published in English and Danish
simultaneously, including Winter s Tales (1942) and The
Angelic Avengers (1946), under the name of Pierre Andr zol.
Among her other collections of stories are Last Tales (1957),
Anecdotes of Destiny (1958), Shadows on the Grass
(1960) and Ehrengard (1963). All of these books are published
by Penguin.
Baroness Blixen died in Rungsted in 1962.
