Summary
In Isak Dinesen's universe, the magical enchantment of the fairy tale and the moral resonance of myth coexist with an unflinching grasp of the most obscure human strengths and weaknesses. A despairing author abandons his wife, but in the course of a long night's wandering, he learns love's true value and returns to her, only to find her a different woman than the one he left. A landowner, seeking to prove a principle, inadvertently exposes the ferocity of mother love. A wealthy young traveler melts the hauteur of a lovely woman by masquerading as her aged and loyal servant.
Shimmering and haunting, Dinesen's Winter's Tales transport us, through their author's deft guidance of our desire to imagine, to the mysterious place where all stories are born.
Isak Dinesen was born Karen Christentze Dinesen in Rungsted, Denmark on April 17, 1885. She studied English at Oxford University and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. During her lifetime, she wrote plays, short stories, novels, poetry, and nonfiction works. Her career as a writer spanned from 1907 to 1962. She was published in Danish under the name of Karen Blixen and in English under the pseudonym of Isak Dinesen. Her short story collections include Seven Gothic Tales, Winter Tales, and Last Tales. Her nonfiction book, Out of Africa, was published in 1937 and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Meryl Streep in 1985. She died of emaciation September 7, 1962.
(Bowker Author Biography)
