Karen Blixen

Best known as the author of the book that inspired the 1985 Oscar-winning film, Out of Africa, Karen Blixen (or Baroness Blixen, as she preferred to be called) was born into a rich Copenhagen family in 1885. She studied painting at the Danish Academy of Art and later in Paris and Rome.

In 1913 she married her second cousin, Baron Bror Blixen Finecke, and moved to British East Africa (today Kenya), where they managed a coffee plantation. Though it was tainted by tragedy, the time she spent in Africa provided Blixen with the material for her memoirs, Den Afrikanske Farm (Out of Africa), written after her return to Rungstedlund just north of Copenhagen.

She lived and worked there until her death in 1962, producing her masterpiece Seven Gothic Tales as well as other works including Winter's Tales, The Angelic Avengers and Anecdotes of Destiny.

Blixen's writings had a great influence on Danish literature of the 20th century and continue to be widely read.