Out of Africa
Writing under the pen name Isak Dinesen, the Danish author Karen Blixen recounts the seventeen years she spent managing a coffee plantation in British East Africa, in what is now Kenya, beginning in 1914. The memoir moves in vignettes rather than a strict narrative, gathering portraits of the people on her farm, the Kikuyu and Somali who worked and lived there, the European settlers and hunters she knew, and the animals and country she loved. Blixen writes in lyrical, measured prose about loss, the failure of the farm, and her eventual departure. The book reflects the assumptions of its colonial era while offering a deeply felt account of a place and a way of life. It inspired the 1985 film of the same name, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
What you might want to know about Out of Africa
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Isak Dinesen recalls the years she spent running a coffee farm in colonial Kenya near the Ngong Hills.
The Danish writer Karen Blixen wrote it under the pen name Isak Dinesen.
Yes. The 1985 film draws on Blixen's memoir and other sources, and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Out of Africa was written by Isak Dinesen, published in 1937 by Putnam.
Out of Africa is 389 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Out of Africa takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Out of Africa is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
