Karen Blixen

Karen Christence Dinesen was born at Rungstedlund on April 17, 1885. In 1914, she married Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, managing a 4,000-acre coffee plantation at the foot of the Ngong Hills in Kenya for seventeen tumultuous years.

Following financial ruin and the tragic loss of her lover Denys Finch Hatton, Blixen returned to Denmark in 1931. Writing in English under the pen name Isak Dinesen, she captivated international readers with Seven Gothic Tales (1934) and her lyrical memoir Out of Africa (Den afrikanske Farm, 1937). Ernest Hemingway declared upon winning his Nobel Prize that she deserved it far more.