Blixen Karen

Karen Blixen was born in 1885, at a time when Europe was experiencing the effects of the Industrial Revolution, colonialism, and major economic and social development. Denmark was a constitutional monarchy, and society was still characterized by strong social classes, while the major European powers competed for colonies in Africa and Asia.

When Blixen settled in East Africa in 1914, the region was under British colonial rule. Europe was entering the First World War, which would dramatically change the political map of the world. Colonial society in Kenya was largely based on European ownership of land and the labor of local populations, a system that would later provoke strong opposition and contribute to the growth of the Kenyan independence movement.

After the First World War, Europe faced economic difficulties, social unrest, and the rise of new political ideologies. The Great Depression of 1929 also affected the colonial economy, contributing to the difficulties faced by Blixen's coffee plantation. In 1931, when she returned permanently to Denmark, the world was already entering a period of severe economic and political instability.

The following decades were marked by the rise of fascism and Nazism, the Second World War, and later the beginning of the Cold War.