Dinesen, Isak, << DEE nuh suhn, EE sak >> (1885-1962), was the pen name of Baroness Karen Blixen-Finecke, a Danish author who wrote in English and Danish. Like Gothic fiction, her stories deal with fantastic, unreal, often grotesque people and situations. She had a deep concern for the supernatural, and she preferred to portray life in exotic settings of the past. Her volumes of short stories include Seven Gothic Tales (1934), Winter’s Tales (1942), Last Tales (1957), and Anecdotes of Destiny (1958).
Karen Christence Dinesen was born in Rungsted, Denmark. She was married to Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke in 1914 and divorced in 1921. She owned a coffee plantation in eastern Africa and lived there from 1914 to 1931. Then she returned to Denmark. She recorded her years in Africa in two books of memoirs, Out of Africa (1937) and Shadows on the Grass (1961).
