More Than Words

BEST KNOWN AS THE AUTHOR OF OUT OF AFRICA, KAREN BLIXEN ALSO HAD AN ARTIST’S EYE THAT SHE INDULGED THROUGH FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS.

By Charlotte Moss

When one thinks of Karen Blixen, whose book Out of Africa memorialized her years as an expatriate in British East Africa, flowers do not immediately come to mind. And yet flowers, and the art of arranging them, were essential to her identity. While Blixen’s African residency lasted 17 years, the rest of her life, both before and after her time in Africa, was spent at Rungstedlund, her family’s manor house north of Copenhagen—and it was there that her devotion to flowers bloomed. Blixen returned to Denmark in 1931 following the financial collapse of her coffee farm and a plane crash that killed her lover, Denys Finch Hatton. Upon her retreat to Rungstedlund, she spent her days arranging flowers from her garden and writing on her portable Corona No. 3 typewriter. For…

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Flower (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2024

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