Out of Africa | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Out of Africa Critical Overview

Isak Dmesen gained worldwide acclaim for her literary achievements. The autobiographical Out of Africa enjoyed popular and critical success, especially in the United States and Britain Most reviewers applauded her lyrical style

Kathenne Woods, in her 1938 article for The New York Times Book Review, finds Dinesen's prose in Out of Africa "without redundancies, bared to its lines of strength and beauty. There was no fat on it, and no luxuriance anywhere, she says of her African landscape; so in the book there is no sentimentality, no elaboration."

As a result, Woods concludes that Dinesen presents a clear vision of Africa, which "lives through all this beautiful and heart-stirring book because of that simple and unsought-for fusion of the spirit, lying behind the skill which can put the sense of Africa's being into clear, right, simple words, through the things and people of the farm."

Furthermore,...
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