Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

LINKS

Kuki Gallmann, author and conservationist, was born in Italy in 1943. She moved with her husband to a farm in Kenya in 1972. Her dramatic memoir, I Dreamed of Africa, first published in 1991, has been translated into eighteen languages.

The major motion picture I Dreamed of Africa, directed by Hugh Hudson, released on May 5, 2000, features Vincent Perez, and stars Kim Basinger as Kuki Gallmann.

Kuki Gallmann's life shares striking aspects with Karen Blixen's:

• Her farm, Ole Ari Nyiro, is north of Nairobi, whereas Karen Blixen's, called Mbogani, is south. Kuki Gallmann's ranch consists of 100,000 acres, whereas Karen Blixen's farm was modest by colonial standards at 6000 acres.
• Kuki Gallmann's farm overlooks the Rift Valley, while Karen Blixen's was separated from the Rift by the Ngong Hills.

• Both women developed interests in conservation and in the native people of Kenya. Kuki Gallmann's foundation pays for the education of young Africans, promotes wildlife preservation, and brings young Kenyans to its Laikipia Wilderness Education Centre for game viewing. Karen Blixen also paid to educate Africans and, in her later life, she was an active supporter of animal rights--an interest she pursued with her friend, Danish writer Ole Wivel.
• Kuki Gallmann's wandering, enigmatic lover, "Aidan," like Karen Blixen's friend Denys Finch Hatton, flies in to visit her "when the moon is full."

• Kuki Gallmann, like Karen Blixen, tragically lost several loved ones. Her husband died in a car crash in Kenya, and her only son was killed at the age of seventeen by a puff adder. Karen Blixen lost her father to suicide, her sister to kidney disease, and her lover Denys Finch Hatton in a plane crash.
• The books of both writers present dramatic anecdotes about narrow escapes with lions.

• Kuki Gallmann's philosophy of life bears a striking resemblance to Karen Blixen's:
1. "Nature and what is around us are far more important than we are."
2. "While we do not choose our tragedies, our losses or our defeats, it is up to us to make a choice to get over them."
3. "Even if you are the most sincere person on earth, we all play a game. But you don't need to pretend with the hills and the gorges and the wild-life. This is what's amazing about Africa. It still has what most of the world has lost."--Kuki Gallmann

Links

The Author

• The Gallmann Memorial Foundation
  

Books by Kuki Gallmann

• I Dreamed of Africa (1991) A memoir.
• African Nights: (2000) A collection of stories and anecdotes about living in Kenya(British title: Night of the Lions).

  For a similar title, see Karen Blixen's untold story