About the Author: Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen 1885–1962 The story you are about to read is an allegory by Isak Dinesen that tells a traditional-sounding tale. However, Dinesen is best known for Out of Africa, an autobiographical account of her years in British East Africa, now Kenya. Born Karen Blixen in Denmark, Dinesen’s spirit of adventure was often at odds with her sheltered upbringing. After her father died and the cousin she loved refused to marry her, she defiantly set sail for Africa to marry the cousin’s twin brother, Bror Blixen-Finecke. In 1914, the couple established a coffee plantation in what is now Kenya. Blixen-Finecke was a wayward, faithless husband who often left Dinesen on her own. After the couple divorced in 1921, Dinesen ran the six-thousand-acre farm by herself for ten years. Although Dinesen is often regarded as the European author who best captured the beauty of the African landscape, she wrote equally accomplished works about northern Europe and the Danish upper class. Many of her stories celebrate the power of women. After she returned to Denmark in 1931, she published Seven Gothic Tales, stories set in Europe hundreds of years ago and featuring mysterious events and persecuted heroines. She published Out of Africa in 1937.

Links to biographical information about the author.

http://www.nndb.com/people/288/000179748/

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-price-of-distinction-6559

http://www.lifetimetv.co.uk/biography/biography-karen-blixen