Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller

judith thurman

A brilliant literary portrait, Isak Dinesen remains the only comprehensive biography of one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Her magnificent memoir, Out of Africa, established Isak Dinesen as a major twentieth-century author, who was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize.

With exceptional grace, Judith Thurman's classic work explores Dinesen's life. Until the appearance of this book, the life and art of Isak Dinesen have been--as Dinesen herself wrote of two lovers in a tale-- "a pair of locked caskets, each containing the key to the other." Judith Thurman has provided the master key to them both.

Winner of the National Book Award

Genres biographynonfictionafricahistorybiography memoirdenmarkkenyamemoirdanishbooks about books

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1982

Literary awards

national book award,

This edition

Format: 512 pages, Paperback
Published: October 15, 1995 by Picador
ISBN: 9780312135256
ASIN: 0312135254
Language: English

About the author

judith thurman

Judith Thurman began contributing to The New Yorker in 1987, and became a staff writer in 2000. She writes about fashion, books, and culture. Her subjects have included André Malraux, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Thurman is the author of “Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller,” which won the 1983 National Book Award for Non-Fiction, and “Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette,” (1999), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography, and the Salon Book Award for biography. The Dinesen biography served as the basis for Sydney Pollack's movie “Out of Africa.” A collection of her New Yorker essays, “Cleopatra's Nose,” was published in 2007.

Thurman lives in New York.

Source: www.newyorker.com/magazine/contributo...‎