Bror Blixen: The Africa Letters

“Pioneer, big-game hunter, socialite, and lover, Bror Blixen was a giant in a land of giants. He figures prominently in such masterpieces of East African literature as Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, West with the Night by Beryl Markham, and Straight On Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell. The subject of much gossip and misinformation painting him as a ruthless and indiscriminate philanderer, Bror Blixen was actually a man of great sensitivity and depth. The letters contained in this volume reveal a man endowed with a keen wit, great courage, and a deeply felt love of the Africa that became his home.

Bror Blixen arrived in the wild country of British East Africa with his young wife Tanne (Isak Dinesen) in 1913. Rarely have a land and a man made such a perfect fit. ‘Bursting with good health’ and enjoying ‘the splendours of Africa’, Bror carved a farm out of the wilderness about him. He learned not merely to survive but to flourish in the harsh countryside, becoming one of the truly great big-game hunters of his generation. He was equally at home in sophisticated society, counting among his friends such luminaries as the Prince of Wales.

His letters take the reader back to a time that seems somehow more vivid than our own day, a time when courage, grace, and style were essential elements of living. Amont the events described in the letters one reads of Bror facing the charge of an enraged bull elephant, his famous flight with Beryl Markham from Nairobi to London, his hunting party barely escaping death in a crocodile-infested river, and Bror dining in the bush with the cream of colonial society. Throughout these tales the beauty and savagery of Africa come alive, seen through the eyes of a remarkable man living in an equally remarkable time and place.”