If you have seen the movie Out of Africa, it is difficult to read an account of Karen Blixen's (aka Isak Dinesen's) life in Kenya and not picture Meryl Streep -- an image that tends to give Blixen's life story the feel of fiction. But though some liberties were taken in the movie, it is mostly true, adapted from the author's autobiographical book of the same title, and suggests that one of Blixen's greatest stories was the one she actually lived.

Karen Dinesen was born in 1885 in Denmark into a wealthy family. She was interested in writing and art as a young girl, and studied in Copenhagen as well as other European cities. Her first story, "The Hermits," was published in 1907 when she was 22 under the pen name Osceola (the name of a Seminole leader). Another story followed later that year, and a third in 1909. Her writing activity dwindled for many years after these publications, some say in part due to the subdued response these early stories received.

In 1909 Karen fell in love with Baron Hans von Blixen-Finecke, but the relationship didn't work out and instead she married his twin brother Bror. In 1914, the same year they married, the couple moved to Kenya and began operating a coffee plantation. The next year she realized she had contracted syphilis from her philandering husband, and returned to Denmark for treatment, but soon thereafter she rejoined him in Africa. Yet their marriage, not surprisingly, was not a happy one and the couple separated in 1921. In the meantime, Blixen had fallen in love with a hunter, Denys Finch Hatton. Their sporadic relationship lasted many years, though the couple never married, until Hatton was killed in a plane crash in 1931. This same year the coffee company, which Blixen had been running herself, fell on hard times, so she decided to move back to Denmark.

Around this time she turned back to her writing, and in 1934 published Seven Gothic Tales under her pen name, Isak Dinesen. The book was very well received, and she furthered her reputation with Out of Africa (1937) and Winter's Tales (1942) Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Blixen continued to write stories, among them "Babette's Feast," which was also eventually made into a movie. She died in 1962 from malnutrition at the age of 77.

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Articles About Blixen, Karen

Karen Blixen's Kenyan Paradise	November 30, 2007
As I walk up the shrubbery-lined path to Karen Blixen's house in Kenya I spot the square clock, with its bold Roman numerals, over the verandah. Time played a big role in her life as she waited a lot. She waited for her philandering husband to return from safaris, she waited for her lover Denys Finch-Hatton to arrive in his single engine plane and she waited for the rains to quench her parched coffee plantation. Men and nature, they all failed her.
Denmark's Karen Blixen Museum	February 4, 2007
As you walk through her peaceful gardens and adjoining forest land, the tourist tape plays a piece of her favourite music: Max Bruch's hauntingly beautiful Violin Concerto. You can take your time; pause and watch the birds for whom this area is a sanctuary, or ponder the mysteries of life and death beside her grave. Here a simple stone bears a large but informal flower arrangement. The flowers have been taken from the gardens. It is the sort of arrangement she might have composed.