Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

Question 72: Why a male pseudonym?

Q. I am really curious, in light of the fact that other people don't mention her taking a man's name in order to be taken seriously, and that other female writers of the period didn't feel the need to use a man's name with their writing, if this is something peculiar to Blixen that can be documented by something she said about it--or if it is, rather, the modern feminist view of the probability of why she did this.

A. Karen Blixen's pseudonym, like her tales, appears open to many interpretations.

Writers have speculated about why Karen Blixen chose to publish under the name Isak Dinesen, but Karen Blixen herself is not on record about why she chose the name.

All of Karen Blixen's authorial pseudonyms were male: Osceola, Isak Dinesen, and Pierre Andrezal.

Some biographies claim she used a man's name from the beginning to send out her manuscripts to publishers. Although no documentation is given, it is likely that this is true, because she had used a pseudonym in the past for articles eventually published in Denmark. However, it seems that she did not send out the manuscript for Seven Gothic Tales using the name Isak Dinesen.

On July 18, 1933, she wrote to the American writer, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who had helped her get the book published, "To respond to your letter concerning the preface, I have no suggestions; I prefer you to remain free to write the preface as you wish, and I hope that this will not create too many problems.--I don't want the book to come out under my own name, and at the same time I don't want people to know that it is myself who has written it, even though that is not a serious problem in America!--I'm going to have to find a name to publish it under."

The preface by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is careful to give the impression that the writer is a man: "...there is a great deal more to an author than the spirit that animates him...There is his style...."

It may be difficult for some to understand Karen Blixen's motivation for using a pseudonym unless they think about the small size of her homeland--and the almost humorous Danish scorn for any kind of self-congratulation. To Karen Blixen, using her own name was like a shout, or a loud boast, within earshot of her neighbors. It was unseemly--particularly if the book were a disastrous failure.

I believe Karen Blixen had two reasons for pretending to be a man. First, she thought readers, including editors, would take her work more seriously if she was a man. Second, she wanted to achieve the greatest distance possible from readers' thinking--or guessing--that any part of her fiction was biographical.

Copyright © 2003 by Linda Donelson. All rights reserved.