Biography of Karen Blixen

The lady came in from the cold April 17, 1885
September 7, 1962

Who is Karen Blixen


Karen Blixen, whose real name was Karen Christence Dinesen, was born on April 17, 1885 in Rungstedlund, Denmark. A landowner's daughter addicted to politics (then committed suicide) he lived for a long time in the campaign that his father first bought and restored later at his own expense. In addition to the placid routine of the Danish countryside Karen met, at least for the first part of his life, the comforts, the gossip and the softness of the environments of the nearby "upperclass" modern and Copenhagen.

In 1913 gets engaged to the Swedish cousin, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, and he decides to leave for Africa with the idea to buy a farm. The "civil" life didn't seem suited to the rebellious character and maybe a bit of the future romantic writer.

Bored in deeply, almost feeling that life escapes the hands without trying real emotions and real. The epilogue of this species rose, although not exactly these characters (at least in the eyes of the people who surround the two) consists of the wedding that formalizes them as husband and wife, celebrated at Mombasa in 1914. Once joined and in compliance with the law, by mutual agreement, will move to a large plantation near Nairobi.

Unfortunately the initial few years romance falls apart. What looked like a great love story with common interests and passions is revealed in a prison reality hard to bear. The 1921 is the year of painful divorce. Bror leaves Africa as Karen lives on in the coffee plantation, now his reason for living, making it grow and conducting with intelligence and tenacity for seventeen years.

But even this laborious procedure will terminate.

The sudden crisis came in 1931 when the coffee market collapses and Karen Blixen is forced to close the plantation activity after several years of stunted survival. At this point more than sentimental reasons the force you to leave Africa and returning to the family home, where he devoted himself intensely to writing.

Among the many stories he writes one in particular is intended to evoke his years in Africa. This kind of intimate diary, considered his masterpiece, is none other than the famous "out of Africa", a title that will come out only in 1937.

The first publication but the market sees is "seven gothic tales," published in England and America in 1934.

Despite the searing longing for Kenya, nostalgia that has all the traits of a true "mal d'africa", she will spend the rest of his days in Denmark, which was plagued by ill health and vacillating, perhaps attributable to some reconstructions a venereal disease that pain would contract by her husband during the first year of marriage.

The last few years so I am particularly sad and delicate. Undermined by relentless disease that leaves not a moment's respite, spends long periods in hospital, sometimes unable even to write or to assume a sitting position. To give shape to his creativity relies on the faithful depositary and Secretary trascrittirce careful of his feeble dictations.

The end comes on September 7, 1962 when Karen Blixen has just passed the seventy years.

A peculiarity of this author is that throughout his career he loved ones behind numerous aliases: Isak Dinesen to Tania Blixen until you get to the androgynous masking with publications on behalf of Pierre Andrézel. This strange and somewhat incomprehensible attitude she attracted a large number of gossip, even with regard to the originality of his writings. The fact remains that Hemingway, at the time of the Nobel Prize, hinted that the prize should have been awarded to the great lady also came from the North.