Profile of Isak Dinesen on Famous Like Me

Karen Blixen (April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962) was a Danish author also known under her pen name Isak Dinesen. Blixen wrote works both in Danish and in English. She is best known, at least in English, for her account of living in Kenya, Out of Africa.

She was born into a Unitarian aristocratic family in Rungsted, and was schooled in art at Copenhagen, Paris, and Rome. She began publishing fiction in various Danish periodicals in 1905 under the pen name Osceola. Her younger brother Thomas Dinesen won the British Victoria Cross and French Croix de Guerre while serving with the Canadian army in the First World War.

In 1914 she married her cousin, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, and the couple relocated to Kenya where they operated a coffee plantation. After several infidelities on the husband's part, the couple separated in 1921, and the Baron returned to Denmark. The divorce was finalized in 1925. Karen Blixen remained in Kenya and continued to operate the plantation until the collapse of the coffee market in 1931 forced her to abandon the project.

She returned to Denmark and began writing in earnest, publishing Seven Gothic Tales (a collection of short stories) in English in 1934. She would go on to publish several other works simultaneously in Danish and English, mostly collections of short stories; she also wrote a novel entitled The Angelic Avengers, under the pseudonym of Pierre Andrezel. She was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat in 1939.

She died in Rungsted, apparently from malnutrition. She had suffered for many years from syphilis contracted from her husband.

Works

• The Hermits (1907, published in a Danish journal under the name Osceola)
• The Ploughman (1907, published in a Danish journal under the name Osceola)
• The de Cats Family (1909, published in Tilskueren)
• The Revenge of Truth (1926, published in Denmark)
• Seven Gothic Tales (1934 in USA, 1935 in Denmark)
• Out of Africa (1937 in Denmark and England, 1938 in USA)
• Winter's Tales (1942)
• The Angelic Avengers (1947)
• Last Tales (1957)
• Anecdotes of Destiny (1958)
• Shadows on the Grass (1960 in England and Denmark, 1961 in USA)
• Ehrengard (posthumous 1963, USA)
• Carnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales (posthumous 1977, USA)
• Daguerreotypes and Other Essays (posthumous 1979, USA)
• On Modern Marriage and Other Observations (posthumous 1986, USA)
• Letters from Africa, 1914-1931 (posthumous 1981, USA)
• Karen Blixen i Danmark: Breve 1931-1962 (posthumous 1996, Denmark)

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