《走出非洲》Out of Africa 的丹麦作者Isak Dinesen

《走出非洲》Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (the pseudonym of the author Karen Blixen)

 

Karen（Tonia）Blixen

As you know, I'm reading Winter Tales by Karen Blixen and thought I should share some images of her and her homes in Denmark and Kenya.

We are very proud of her here in Denmark, one of the great Danes and we feel a little jump in our hearts whenever she's mentioned in abroad medias. I wont go into great detail about her due to the numerous sites and references to her on the internet and in printed media.

I do love when women are celebrated for their wit, intelligence, and strength in stead of just their beauty. I don't know whether I think of her as a beautiful woman (she wasn't ugly though) but I have always seen her as more of a character than thus.

As mentioned in my previous post, I would very much like to visit Rungstedlund, and her farm in Kenya, but I want to even more so after seing these pictures. I'm dying to see her study in real life. I think I could spend a week in there.

Well, enough said, so without further ado.. Karen Blixen everyone...

Karen Blixen as a young woman in Denmark, image from udenrigsministeriet.dk

 Karen Blixen in Africa, image from skole-it.dk

Karen Blixen in 1959, the year people claim she was cheated for a Nobel Prize. Image from guardian.co.uk.

For more about that story please click here. You should also note that the coat she's wearing in the picture is from a leopard she shot herself! Even though I don't really like the notion of real fur, I do think its kinda cool and typically of her.

Karen Blixen's farm in Ngong Hills in Kenya, image from copenhagenet.dk

 

Her beloved Rungstedlund in Denmark, image from horsholm.dk

 Another view of Rungstedlund. Image from copenhagenet.dk

 

Her famous study where she wrote most of the time. Image from copenhagenet.dk

She has also appeared on the bank notes of Denmark. They are now replaced with images of bridges which many in Denmark think is a shame.

The people from top down, Karen Blixen; Carl Nielsen (composer); Johanne Louise Heiberg (actress and taste-maker together with her playwriter husband); Niels Bohr (physist who worked together with Einstein), and in the end the artist couple Anna and Michael Ancher (painters from Skagen)

The pages on the right shows the back of the notes which pictured some ancient finds which I think is now at the National Museum in Copenhagen.

Image from kommunikationsforum.dk

She also has a rose named after her. How wonderful to have a personal rose, and a white one! I love white roses.. My mum has one in her garden, and it smells so sweet you wouldn't believe it. Summer and power at the same time, if you can imagine that..

Image from 24.dk

Rosendahl has for a couple of years made a collection of Christmas decorations in honour of the baroness, and I love them. They are the perfect combination of fuzzy and simple at the same time. I just wish that the top star was more like the heart shown here.

Images from hjallerupisenkram.dk

Hope you enjoyed the little gallery on Karen Blixen, and I wish you all a very lovely day.

Love from The Dandelion Chronicles

http://thedandelionchronicles-denmark.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html

Quotes

“To be lonely is a state of mind, something completely other than physical solitude; when modern authors rant about the soul’s intolerable loneliness, it is only proof of their own intolerable emptiness.” – Out of Africa, 1937

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea." – Out of Africa, 1937

"When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them." – Out of Africa, 1937

"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!" – "Babette's Feast", 1953