Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller

Winner, National Book Awards 1983 for Autobiography/Biography - Hardcover

cover of Isak Dinesen The Life of a Storyteller by Judith Thurman

photo of Judith Thurman credit Brigitte Lacombe
Judith Thurman

Judith Thurman is the author of Cleopatra’s Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire; Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller, winner of the National Book Award for Autobiography/Biography; and Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette. More about this author >

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From the publisher:

A brilliant literary portrait, Isak Dinesen remains the only comprehensive biography of one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Dinesen’s magnificent memoir, Out of Africa, established her 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.

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