Chimanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Amerikában és Nigériában él. Számos irodalmi díjat nyert: Orange Prize for Fiction, Best American Short Story, Commonwealth Írók Díja, O. Henry-díj. Kreatív írást, afrikai irodalmat tanít a Princeton, majd a Harvard egyetemen. Adichie-t 2010-ben The New Yorker irodalmi magazin a 20 legjobb negyven év alatti író közé sorolta.
Művei: Purple Hibiscus, 2003; Half of a Yellow Sun, 2006; The Thing Around Your Neck, 2009. Az 2013-ban megjelent Americanah a közelmúltban nyerte el a Heartland Prize díjat.
A New York Times 2013 legjobb könyvei listán a regény kategóriában az első helyen C. N. Adichie: Americanah.
Fiction Prize - 2013 március 13.
Fotó: Ivara Esege
A hosszútávfutó, Alan Sillitoe leállt (82)
A „dühüngő ifjúság” névre keresztelt angol újhullám a II.világháborúból felocsúdó, gyarmatai zömét elveszítő és megújulást kereső új Anglia művész nemzedékének gyűjtőneve. A Brit Birodalom, melyben (szintén) nem nyugodott le a Nap nem volt többé, a világháborútól kimerült, eleadósodott az amerikai unokatestvérének . Szénhiány, élelmiszer-jegyrendszer, a gyarmatokról hazatelepedő visszavándorlók hulláma, majd őket követő gyarmati népek betelepedése, ez volt a brit valóság. Régi értékek kerültek süllyesztőbe és újak fogalmazódtak. Alan Sillitoe az egyik dühöngő ifjú 60-as évek legelején kitalált hősei az átvészelő rendszer ellen lázadó, tagadó, szinte anarchista figurák. Sillitoe beírja az irodalomba a gyári munkást, a húst marcangoló gürizését, egyszerű, szenzualista életfelfogását, a munkásnapokat a szombat-vasárnapi örömökért hat napon át güriző embereket. Negyven évvel később Sillitoe elővette az 1961-ben írt „ Szombat este vasárnap reggel” hőseit és „megnézte” mi lett velük, a hetvenes lázadókat, ami „Three score and ten” . „ Sillitoe tudja, hol járnak a hősei, mit csinálnak, mire gondolnak , akkor is, ha nem ők szerepelnek a lapokon „ állított egykor a The Scotsman. Mikor újra fölbukkannak, úgy tűnik csak ellapozott az olvasó, folytatódik a történet, mintha addig is róluk írt volna. Ez történik a "Születésnap" c. regényben, Sillitoe megírta a hetvenes Arthur Seatont, a szoknyavadász macsót. Négy évtizedett hagyott Arthurnak. Kereshetjük visszatekintve Anglia negyven évét, a Beatlestől a globalizálódó, pakisztáni, kínai éttermektől színesedő „ álmos” vidéket, Nottinghamet. "A nap törött szekerén" / 2008 / , vagy a „Születésnap” / 2005 / esetén több, mint negyven évet lapoztunk, ha Sillitoe két első regényéhez mérjük az időt( „Szombat este vasárnap reggel” és a Hosszútávfutó magányossága c. könyvekhez 1958 ) .
Sillitoe a szinte azonnal megfilmesített első két regényével ( „Szombat este vasárnap reggel” : 1961 r. Karel Reisz, ” A hosszútávfutó magányossága” : 1962 r. Tony Richardson ) örökre az angol irodalom része lesz, / ha ezután semmit sem ír akkor is../ üdvözli a The New Yorker . Utánozhatatlan meseszövő, ahogy ír, bár a közben felnőtt ifjú nemzedék hangosabb vagy cifrább mellette, de a mesélni nem tudnak, úgy, mint ő- írja ismét a The Scotsman * Az angol új hullám két regényéből a szereplők, vagy figurák újra fölbukkannak a „A nap törött szekere” és a „Születésnap” lapjain. A „Születésnap” - ban Arthur Seaton jelenik meg 70 évesen. A „Szombat este vasárnap reggel „kocsmahőse, a szoknyabolond rocker, mielőtt a rock and roll őrülete végigsöpör Anglián. Arthur a maga módján bölcsebb, vagy melegszívűbb. A férjes asszonyokkal folytatott rengeteg kaland után rábukkan élete szerelmére. Elkényeztetett, naplopó, drogos fiának mesélget a Beatles koncertről, melyen sosem volt. Sillitoe kitalálja Arthur mellé a fivér Brian alakját, a sitcom gyárost, aki Nottinghamből küzdi fel magát Londonba, divatos szappanoperák szerzőjének, miután komoly írásait sorra visszautasították az öltönyös dzsentleman szerkesztők. Mennyire boldog Brian? Hétvégeken robog haza a „ globalizálodó” volt bányászvárosba, Sillitoe kedvenc színhelyére, Nottinghambe. A fiú eljöhet vidékről, de viszi magával azt. „A nap törött szekerén” lázadó, kamasz Herbertje nem/csak a külvilággal küzd, tagadja meg azt, mint a hosszútávfutó Colin a munkásfiú, akit javító-nevelő intézetbe zárnak.Az igazgató kényezteti, hogy megnyerje neki a hosszútávfutó bajnokságot és a kupát. Colin leáll a célvonalnál. Herbert harca önmagával folytatott küzdelmével elegyedik . Colinnal szemben, Herbert a középosztály gyermeke . Anyai nagyapja vidéki vikárius - a könyv első fejezetében még hét tenger fölött uralkodik Britannia. A lelkész és lánya Maud, később Herbert anyja a motorizáció első hírnökén, Daimler kocsin ismeri meg férjét. Az első világháborúban vöröskeresztes Maud, a fronton találkozik Herbert ismét atyjával, Hughval, aki a második világháború végére már tábornok. A család Brit-Indiában, a Birodalom utolsó éveiben nevelgeti Herbertet , majd "könyörtelenül" hazaküldik a szülők, beiskolázni Angliában. Herbert megszökik és példaképét Phaetont követi. Ovidius az Átváltozásokban írt Phaetonról, aki megkísérli végigvezetni az égen a Nap szekerét. Phaeton származása a görög mitológiából ismert isten-ember szerelemból ered, Phoebus Apolló és Clymene etióp királylány szerelméből születik. Társai gúnyolják az isteni származására büszke, földi apa nélküli Phaetont, aki bizonyosságot akar, ha az életébe kerül is. Herbert Nottinghamben bukkan föl. Ez Sillitoe terepe.Hadiüzemben dolgozik, titkolja származását, hiszen szökevény, a világháború még tart, vigyáz a kiejtésére, igyekszik a gyári emberek nyelvén beszélni. Herbert neve is áldozatul esik, Bertként ismerik a kocsmában, a gyárban.
Elhagyott szülei helyett egy öreg nyomdász egyengeti kezdő lépteit, albérletében a háziasszony második anyjává emelkedik. Apja családjának katonavére dolgozik benne, megjárja sorkatonaként Ciprust az Enosis idején, majd a szuezi válság nem dicsőséges pillanataiból jut ki neki. Bert és a régi Herbert tusakodnak lelkében, hogy tovább bírja a fiú a gyári élet egyhangúságát leszerelés után. Lejegyzi gyári élményeit és a nyomdász bíztatására kiadót keres. A siker óriási, ő az igazi munkásíró, nem a micimackós D.H. Lawrence, állapítják meg. A siker Herbert és Bert kettősségét tovább feszíti, melyet tetéz , találkozása igaz szerelmével és a kiadója leleplezi. A kadetévfolyam képe a főszerkesztő szobájában lóg. Szüleivel kapcsolatot teremt, megbékél? Apja,Hugh váratlanul meghal. Herbert apja utolsó napjából olvassa ki, hogy Hugh a példás katona, szintén kétféle embert, két Hugh-t rejtegetett. Herbert a tüzes szekéren feljuthat a csúcsra, ahonnan a kudarcot valló Phaeton a mélybe és a hallhatatlanságba zuhant. Nemcsak Arthur Seaton lesz negyven évvel öregebb és bölcsebb, Sillitoe lázadója alakja is változott, a tagadás helyett, az igen kimondását választja. Alan Sillitoe egy hete végleg célba ért, a célszalagot régen, ötven éve átszakította.
Elspeth Huxley
Nellie and Major Josceline Grant, Elspeth Grant's parents, arrived in Thika in what was then British East Africa in 1912, when she was 5 years old, to start a life as coffee farmers and colonial settlers. Flame Trees... explores how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were. Elspeth was educated at a white school in Nairobi. She left Africa in 1925, earning a degree in agriculture at Reading University in England and studying at Cornell University in upstate New York.[1] Elspeth returned to Africa periodically, becoming the Assistant Press Officer to the Empire Marketing Board in 1929. She married Gervas Huxley, the son of the doctor Henry Huxley (1865–1946) in 1931. They had one son, Charles, who was born in February 1944. She resigned her post in 1932 and traveled widely. During this period, she published her first works including Lord Delamere and the making of Kenya – a biography of the famous settler. In 1948 The Sorcerer's Apprentice – A Journey through Africa was published. She was appointed an independent member of the Advisory Commission for the Review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (the Monckton Commission). An advocate of colonialism early in life, she later called for independence for African countries. In the 1960s, she served as a correspondent for the National Review magazine.
Huxley's Red Strangers was republished by Penguin Books in 1999 and by Penguin Classics in 2000; Richard Dawkins played an important role in getting the book to be republished, and he wrote a preface to the new edition. However, as of 2006, Red Strangers was once again out of print. This work describes life among the Kikuyu of Kenya around the time of arrival of the first European settlers. There is a biography by Christine S. Nicholls, Elspeth Huxley: A Biography (Harper Collins, 2002). Huxley was a friend of Joy Adamson,[2] the author of Born Free, and is mentioned in the biography of Joy and George Adamson entitled The Great Safari. Elspeth Huxley wrote the foreword to Joy's autobiography The Searching Spirit. Huxley died in a nursing home at age 89 on 10 January 1997 at Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England.
The hous of "The Flame Trees of Thika" Rondavel, Kenya
Meja Mwangi
Meja Mwangi began his prolific writing career in the 1970s, a decade after his more well-known compatriots such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Grace Ogot had been publishing their works. When he burst onto the scene with the award- winning Kill Me Quick in 1973, Mwangi was hailed in various quarters as a rising star in the East African literary constellation who was helping to disprove Taban lo Liyong's oft-cited claim that East Africa was a literary desert (Taban 1965, Nazareth 1976). Since then, Meja Mwangi has gone on to establish himself as one of the most prolific of Kenyan writers, publishing eleven novels in seventeen years in addition to short stories, children's books and working with a variety of projects in film. Mwangi's works have received awards in Kenya and abroad, they have been translated into six languages, and there are film versions of two of his novels. If there is a single writer whose work is representative of the entire range of Kenyan narrative fiction today, it is Meja Mwangi.
What is common to practically all of Kenyan--indeed, we might even say African—writing is its major thematic preoccupation with the dynamics of how tradition and modernity interact in African society. This thematic preoccupation has led in a number of directions, of course, with major concerns being the disintegration of village life following the arrival of the Europeans in the colonial era, the disequilibrium caused by European formal education, the torment of the "been-to", the influence of the missionaries, and in the post-colonial setting the development of a new African political and economic elite and the dilemmas of life in the modern African city. While Mwangi has touched on all of these concerns, we might divide his work into three major categories. The first comprises his Mau Mau novels. For many Kenyan writers, the armed resistance to British colonialism in Kenya, which came to be known as the Mau Mau revolt and reached its height in the 1950s, was a far-reaching experience. Mwangi has "exhumed his Mau Mau ghost" in his two novels Carcase for Hounds and Taste of Death (note). The'thrillers that Mwangi began to write during the late 1970s and 1980s form a second category of texts, and have put him at the heart of a raging critical debate in the Kenyan literary establishment over the merits of serious versus popular literature. The third category of Mwangian writing, in fact written before Mwangi began his popular writings, is that of the urban novel. Mwangi's urban trilogv--Kill Me Quick. Going Down River Road, and The Cockroach Dance—is a compelling and innovative set of texts dealing with what is arguably the most pressing contemporary social problem in Kenya: the rapid urbanization the country has experienced since independence in 1963 and its accompanying social problems. It is fair to say that critical acclaim for Mwangi as a writer has come predominantly from these tales of city life.
Karen Blixen (Danish artist) 1885 - 1962
aka Karen von Blixen-Finecke; aka Isak Dinesen; aka Tania Blixen, aka Osceola; aka Pierre Andrézel
Karen von Blixen-Finecke (1885 - 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen wrote works in Danish, French and English.
Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed, Academy Award-winning motion pictures. Prior to the release of the first film, she was noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, for which she is also known in Denmark.
Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, described it as "a mistake" that Blixen was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature during the 1930s. Although never awarded the prize, she finished in third place behind Graham Greene in 1961, the year Ivo Andrić was awarded the prize.
Karen Dinesen was born on 17 April 1885 in the manor house Rungstedlund north of Copenhagen, as the daughter of writer and army officer Wilhelm Dinesen, and his wife Ingeborg, nee Westenholz, and was the older sister of Thomas Dinesen. Her mother came from a wealthy Unitarian bourgeois merchant family. From August 1872 to December 1873, Wilhelm Dinesen had lived among the Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin, where he fathered a daughter, who was born after his return to Denmark. Wilhelm Dinesen hanged himself in 1895, when Karen was ten. He suffered from syphilis which resulted in bouts of deep depression.
Karen spent some of her early years at her mother's family home, the Mattrup seat farm near Horsens. She was later schooled in art in Copenhagen, Paris, and Rome. She began publishing fiction in Danish periodicals in 1905 under the pseudonym Osceola.
In 1913, Karen Dinesen became engaged to her second-cousin, the Swedish Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, after a failed love affair with his brother. The couple moved to Kenya, which was at the time part of British East Africa. In early 1914, they used family money to establish a coffee plantation there, hiring local workers; predominantly the Kikuyu people who lived on the farmlands at the time of their arrival. About the couple's early life in the African Great Lakes region, Karen Blixen later wrote,
Here at long last one was in a position not to give a damn for all conventions, here was a new kind of freedom which until then one had only found in dreams!
The two were quite different in education and temperament, and Bror Blixen was unfaithful to his wife. She was diagnosed with syphilis toward the end of their first year of marriage. According to Dinesen's biographer Judith Thurman, there is reason to doubt that Bror Blixen was the cause. Although Dinesen's illness was eventually cured (some uncertainty exists), it created medical anguish for years afterward. The Blixens separated in 1921, and were divorced in 1925.
During her early years in Kenya, Karen Blixen met the English big game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, and after her separation she and Finch Hatton developed a close friendship which eventually became a long-term love affair. Finch Hatton used Blixen's farmhouse as a home base between 1926 and 1931, when he wasn't leading one of his clients on safari. He died in the crash of his de Havilland Gipsy Moth biplane in 1931. At the same time, the failure of the coffee plantation, as a result of the worldwide economic depression and the unsuitability of her farm's soil for coffee growing, forced Blixen to abandon her beloved farm. The family corporation sold the land to a residential developer, and Blixen returned to Denmark, where she lived for the rest of her life.
On returning to Denmark, Blixen began writing in earnest. Her first book, Seven Gothic Tales, was published in the US in 1934 under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen. This first book, highly enigmatic and more metaphoric than Gothic, won great recognition, and publication of the book in Great Britain and Denmark followed. Her second book, now the best known of her works, was Out of Africa, published in 1937, and its success firmly established her reputation as an author. She was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat (a Danish prize for women in the arts or academic life) in 1939.
During World War II, when Denmark was occupied by the Germans, Blixen started her only full-length novel, the introspective tale The Angelic Avengers, under another pseudonym, Pierre Andrezel; it was published in 1944. The horrors experienced by the young heroines were interpreted as an allegory of Nazism.
Her writing during most of the 1940s and 1950s consisted of tales in the storytelling tradition. The most famous is "Babette's Feast", about a chef who spends her entire 10,000-franc lottery prize to prepare a final, spectacular gourmet meal. The Immortal Story, was adapted to the screen in 1968 by Orson Welles, a great admirer of Blixen's work and life. Welles later attempted to film The Dreamers, but only a few scenes were ever completed.
Blixen's tales follow a traditional style of storytelling, and most take place against the background of the 19th century or earlier periods. Concerning her deliberately old-fashioned style, Blixen mentioned in several interviews that she wanted to express a spirit that no longer existed in modern times, that of destiny and courage. Indeed, many of her ideas can be traced back to those of Romanticism. Blixen's concept of the art of the story is perhaps most directly expressed in the story "The Cardinal's First Tale" from her fifth book, Last Tales.
Though Danish, Blixen wrote her books in English and then translated her work into her native tongue. Critics describe her English as having unusual beauty.[who?] Her later books usually appeared simultaneously in both Danish and English. As an author, she kept her public image as a charismatic, mysterious old Baroness with an insightful third eye, and established herself as an inspiring figure in Danish culture, although shunning the mainstream.
Blixen was widely respected by contemporaries such as Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote, and during her tour of the United States in 1959, writers who visited her included Arthur Miller, E. E. Cummings, and Pearl Buck. She also met actress Marilyn Monroe with her husband Arthur Miller. The socialite Babe Paley gave a lunch in her honour at St.Regis with Truman and Cecil Beaton as guests, and Gloria Vanderbilt gave her a dress by Mainbocher. The photographer Richard Avedon took one of his famous pictures of her during her stay in New York. She was admired by Cecil Beaton and the patron Pauline de Rothschild of the Rothschild family.
She was awarded the Danish Ingenio et Arti medal in 1950.[4] In 2012, the Nobel records were opened after 50 years and it was revealed that Blixen was among a shortlist of authors considered for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, along with John Steinbeck (winner), Robert Graves, Lawrence Durrell and Jean Anouilh. Blixen became ineligible after dying in September.
Although it was widely believed that syphilis continued to plague Blixen throughout her lifetime, extensive tests were unable to reveal evidence of syphilis in her system after 1925. Her writing prowess suggests that she did not suffer from the mental degeneration of late stages of syphilis, nor from cerebral poisoning due to mercury treatments. She did suffer a mild permanent loss of sensation in her legs that could be attributed to chronic use of arsenic in Africa. Others attribute her weight loss and eventual death to anorexia nervosa.
During the 1950s Blixen's health quickly deteriorated, and in 1955 she had a third of her stomach removed because of an ulcer. Writing became impossible, although she did several radio broadcasts.
In her analysis of Blixen's medical history, Linda Donelson points out that Blixen wondered if her pain was psychosomatic even though she blamed it in public on the emotive syphilis: "Whatever her belief about her illness, the disease suited the artist's design for creating her own personal legend."
Unable to eat, Blixen died in 1962 at Rungstedlund, her family's estate, at the age of 77, apparently of malnutrition. The source of her abdominal problems remains unknown, although gastric syphilis, manifested by gastric ulcers during secondary and tertiary syphilis, was well-known prior to the advent of modern antibiotics.
Blixen lived most of her life at the family estate Rungstedlund, which was acquired by her father in 1879. The property is located in Rungsted, 24 kilometres (15 mi) north of Copenhagen, Denmark's capital. The oldest parts of the estate date to 1680, and it had been operated as both an inn and a farm. Most of Blixen's writing was done in Ewald's Room, named after author Johannes Ewald. The property is managed by the Rungstedlund Foundation, founded by Blixen and her siblings. It was opened to the public as a museum in 1991. In 2013 The Karen Blixen Museum joined the Nordic museum portal CultureNordic.com.
The Nairobi suburb that stands on the land where Blixen farmed coffee is now named Karen. Blixen herself declared in her later writings that "the residential district of Karen" was "named after me". And Blixen's biographer, Judith Thurman, was told by the developer who bought the farm from the family corporation that he planned to name the district after Blixen.
Blixen was known to her friends not as "Karen" but as "Tania." The family corporation that owned her farm was incorporated as the "Karen Coffee Company". The chairman of the board was her uncle, Aage Westenholz,[9] who may have named the company after his own daughter Karen. However, the developer seems to have named the district after its famous author/farmer rather than the name of her company.
There is a Karen Blixen Coffee House and Museum in the district of Karen, located near Blixen's former home.
Karen Blixen's portrait was featured on the front of the Danish 50-krone banknote, 1997 series, from 7 May 1999 to 25 August 2005.[10][11] She also featured on Danish postage stamps that were issued in 1980[12] and 1996.
Blixen's great-nephew, Anders Westenholz, was also an accomplished writer, and has written books about her and her literature, among other things.
* * *
Karen Blixen created her pictures not only in words but also in drawings and paintings. Her handwriting is, in and of itself, a beautifully rendered movement across the page, as if the writing´s very form has a story of its own. As a young girl she often mixed her writing excercises with her sketches, the one form of expression inextricably tied to the other.
As an author Karen Blixen was much indebted to the art of painting: ”I would have always had difficulty seeing how a landscape really looked if I had not learned the key to doing so from the great painters.”
It all began in the sheer joy of reading and came to fruition when, as a seventeen year old, she entered the art school run by misses Sode and Meldahl in Copenhagen. Learning the fine art of perspective drawing was a revelation for her. The discipline and rules of law involved in constructive drawing served as the basis for her work as an author.
Blixen received her first real training in drawing from Charlotte Sode and Julie Meldahl in their art school on Bredgade, in 1902-03, where she prepared for further studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and in 1910, twenty-five-year-old Karen Dinesen attended an art school in Paris.
Karen Blixen´s letters from Africa speak only occasionally about artistic activities. The result, however, consist of some brilliant portraits of the native helpers on her farm, evidence of a considerable talent and a special insight into her models´ personalities.
After the farm in Africa was sold in 1931, she returned home to Denmark. From then on the pictures appeared not on paper or canvas but in words. One form seemed to replace the other. At the same time, all her painterly insights were integrated into the written picture.
* * *
The bird’s eye view that Karen Blixen acquired at drawing school as a young woman has influenced her story telling and birds frequently appear in her narratives. The great black hornbill that she painted in the early 20’s, and later described in her novel Out of Africa, possessed special meaning because of it’s black colour. It is, according to Blixen, out of the elegant and powerful colour black that art emerges.
When visiting The Karen Blixen Museum you will notice there are birdhouses all over the garden where Blixen is buried; keeping her among birds in death as she was in life.
* * *
Quotes
I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. – Out of Africa, 1937
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. – The Deluge at Norderney, Seven Gothic Tales, 1934
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
He belonged to the olden days, and I have never met another German who has given me so strong an impression of what Imperial Germany was and stood for." – About General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, German commander during the East Africa Campaign.
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
Works
Works by Karen Blixen on Open Library at the Internet Archive
Works about Karen Blixen in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Some of Blixen's works were published posthumously, including tales previously removed from earlier collections and essays she wrote for various occasions.
The Hermits (1907, published in a Danish journal under the name Osceola)
The Ploughman (1907, published in a Danish journal under the name Osceola)
The de Cats Family (1909, published in Tilskueren)
The Revenge of Truth (1926, published in Denmark)
Seven Gothic Tales (1934 in USA, 1935 in Denmark)
Out of Africa (1937 in Denmark and England, 1938 in USA)
Winter's Tales (1942)
The Angelic Avengers (1946)
Last Tales (1957)
Anecdotes of Destiny (1958) (including Babette's Feast)[15]
Shadows on the Grass (1960 in England and Denmark, 1961 in USA)
Ehrengard (posthumous 1963, USA)
Carnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales (posthumous 1977, USA)
Daguerreotypes and Other Essays (posthumous 1979, USA)
On Modern Marriage and Other Observations (posthumous 1986, USA)
Letters from Africa, 1914–1931 (posthumous 1981, USA)
Karen Blixen in Danmark: Breve 1931–1962 (posthumous 1996, Denmark)
Asteroid 3318 Blixen, named after the author
Banknotes of Denmark, 1997 series
Karen Blixen Museum, Hørsholm, Denmark
Jurij Moskvitin, friend of Blixen
Books in Karen Blixen Musum, Karen, Nairobi, Kenya
Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham (26 October 1902 – 3 August 1986) was a British-born Kenyan aviatrix, adventurer, and racehorse trainer. During the pioneer days of aviation, she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. She is now primarily remembered as the author of the memoir West with the Night. Markham was born Beryl Clutterbuck in the village of Ashwell, in the county of Rutland, England, the daughter of Charles Baldwin Clutterbuck and Clara Agnes (Alexander) Clutterbuck (1878–1952).[1] She had an older brother, Richard Alexander Clutterbuck (1900–1942). When she was four years old, her father moved the family to Kenya, which was then British East Africa, purchasing a farm in Njoro near the Great Rift Valley. Although her mother disliked the isolation and promptly returned to England, Beryl stayed in Kenya with her father, where she spent an adventurous childhood learning, playing and hunting with the natives. On her family's farm, she developed a knowledge of, and love for horses. As a young adult, she became the first licensed female horse trainer in Kenya. Impetuous, single-minded and beautiful, Markham was a noted non-conformist, even in a colony known for its colourful eccentrics. During her lifetime she was married three times. She also had an unconcealed 1929 affair with the Duke of Gloucester, the son of George V. The Windsors promptly cut the romance short; Hubert Broad had an affair with Beryl and he was named as the accomplice in the divorce by Mansfield Markham.[2] After her Atlantic crossing, she returned to be with Broad. He was also a great influence in her flying career. She befriended the Danish writer Karen Blixen during the years that Blixen was managing her family's coffee farm in the Ngong hills outside Nairobi. (In the film rendering of Blixen's memoir, Out of Africa, Markham is represented by an outspoken, horse-riding tomboy named Felicity.) When Blixen's romantic connection with the hunter and pilot Denys Finch Hatton was winding down, Markham started an affair with him herself. He invited her to tour game lands on what turned out to be his fatal flight, but Markham declined because of a premonition from her flight instructor, Tom Campbell Black.[3] Sara Wheeler, in her biography of Finch Hatton, notes that she believes stories that Markham was pregnant by him at the time of his crash. Largely inspired by the British pilot Tom Campbell Black, with whom she had a long-term affair, she took up flying. She worked for some time as a bush pilot, spotting game animals from the air and signaling their locations to safaris on the ground. She also mingled with the notorious Happy Valley set.