out of africa is isak dinesens memoir of her years in africa from 1914 to 1931 on a fourthousandacre coffee plantation in the hills near nairobi she had come to kenya from denmark with her husband and when they separated she stayed on to manage the farm by herself visited frequently by her lover the biggame hunter denys finchhatton for whom she would make up stories like scheherazade in africa i learned how to tell tales she recalled many years later the natives have an ear still i told stories constantly to them all kinds her account of her african adventures written after she had lost her beloved farm and returned to denmark is that of a master storyteller a woman whom john updike called one of the most picturesque and flamboyant literary personalities of the century