Blixen, Karen (1885–1962)

Danish writer. She wrote mainly in English and is best known for her short stories, Gothic fantasies with a haunting, often mythic quality, published in such collections as Seven Gothic Tales (1934) and Winter's Tales (1942) under the pen-name Isak Dinesen. Her autobiography Out of Africa (1937; filmed 1985) is based on her experience of running a coffee plantation in Kenya.

She was born in Rungstedlund, north of Copenhagen, and educated abroad as well as in Denmark. In 1947 she married Baron Bror Blixen Finecke, a cousin, with whom she lived in Kenya until her return to Rungstedlund 1931.