Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen

Out of Africa is a memoir by Baroness Karen Dinesen Blixen, who ran a coffee plantation outside of Nairobi, Kenya, for 17 years in the early 20th century when Kenya was still a British colony. She tells anecdotes of the squatters who lived on her plantation, her servants, and her friends and colleagues. 

I greatly enjoyed reading this book, as so much of it reminded me of the people and culture of Kenya both times that I visited there. Yes, things have changed quite a bit since the early 1900s. Nairobi is a very large city and has giant slums full of poor people, it has skyscrapers, all kinds of farming, but the people are in many ways the same. 

I felt like the author had a gentle and great love for the people of Africa, as well as the land. 

I watched the movie after reading the book. Glen Close played the Baroness, and Robert Redford played Denys Finch-Hatton, her close friend or so I thought until I saw the movie, and learned he was her lover. It was modestly hinted at in the book, so I looked her up on Google, and interestingly enough, he was her lover, after divorcing her husband who married her mainly for convenience. 

The movie was a bit different from the book, no surprise at that---but the movie, I feel was based half on her book, and half on the events of her life that were recorded in history but not recorded by her in her book. It is well worth watching, but I would read the book and read a little more about her before watching the movie, for a greater appreciation of it.