Out of Africa

We read Out of Africa, by Isak Dineson, for book club.

Isak Dineson was the pen name of Karen Blixen.

Out of Africa is her memoir about her days in colonial Kenya, trying to make a living by running a coffee farm, while having a lot of fun with a certain big game hunter. Eventually the coffee venture goes belly up, and she has to leave.

It's not in the book, but she came back to Europe and became a famous writer. Writing sentences like this:

There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.

Some of the book club members didn't like her imperious attitude, and perhaps distrusted her wild ways. But all agreed she wrote like a dream.

Karen Blixen,
arrogant vixen,
lost her land
but turned her hand
to cultivating prose
that flows
along
like song.