Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (1885 – 1962) is the Danish-born author’s 1937 memoir of her years in Africa from 1914 to 1931. There she owned a 4,000-acre coffee plantation in the hills outside of Nairobi, Kenya.

Born Karen Dinesen, she had come to Kenya from Denmark with her husband, Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke.  When they separated, she stayed on to manage the farm herself.

During those years she was frequently visited by her lover, the big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton. For his amusement, she would make up stories “like Scheherazade.” Read More→