In 1895 when Karen was ten years old, Wilhelm hung himself, leaving his wife to raise five children alone. Although Karen knew little of her father, she often claimed to identify most with his family and his sense of exploration. Her father, Wilhelm Dinesen, fought in the Prusso-Danish war in 1864, and later lived in the United States for two years amongst Native American tribes. Karen Blixen’s complicated life and work continue to be studied, debated, and questioned in light of both the colonial society she inhabited and the modern reality of a postcolonial world (see Victorian Women Travelers in the 19th Century).īorn in 1885 fifteen miles north of Copenhagen in Rungstedlund, Denmark, Karen Dinesen grew up on her family’s spacious estate and led a somewhat typical aristocratic life. Criticism of her work frequently shifts from admiration of her form to outrage at her portrayal of Africans. Author, storyteller, and early colonizer, she helped to define Africa and its people for the many Europeans who read her novels, chiefly Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass.
Karen Blixen remains a complex figure in the writing and history of colonial Africa.
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