Isak Dinesen

(1885 - 1962)

After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Isak Dinesen in 1912 became engaged to her Swedish cousin Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, whose uncle, Count Morgens Frijs, suggested they leave Denmark: “Go to Kenya, you two.” She lived in the African country for seventeen years, managing a six-thousand-acre coffee estate in the Ngong Hills by herself. After the business failed, Dinesen returned in 1931 to Denmark, publishing her memoir, Out of Africa, in 1937 and her only novel, The Angelic Avengers, in 1944.