Can Karen Blixen's book Out of Africa be called an autobiography or not?

In discussing whether Karen Blixen's book Out of Africa is an autobiography or not, firstly an examination of the definition of an autobiography and other related terms is necessary. Autobiography is defined as "the biography of a person narrated by himself or herself" ("Autobiography"). Memoir, on the other hand, has "historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiography since the late 20th century [and while] a biography or autobiography tells the story 'of a life', […] a memoir often tells a story 'from a life'" ("Memoir"). From these definitions we can therefore say that Out of Africa is a memoir rather than an autobiography due to the nature of the book only covering a part of Karen Blixen's life.

Life writing is described as the "recording of memories and experiences, whether one's own or another's [and] applies to many genres and practices, under which can be found autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, letters, testimonies, personal essays and, more recently, digital forms such as blogs and email" ("Life Writing"). Given this description we can still count Out of Africa as a memoir as life writing appears to be more of an umbrella term for different formats of writing of which memoir is one. The term autofiction "coined […] in 1977 [and] used in literary criticism to refer to a form of fictionalised autobiography" ("Autofiction") offers potential in opening up discussion of Out of Africa. While Karen Blixen is on record as stating that the book contains nothing less than "the truth of her years in Africa" (van der Liet) the fact that the term autofiction now exists points to a reexamination of texts thought to be pure truth or fact and the nature of any embellishment in those works whether intentional or not. In this aspect Karen Blixen's account (which she finished in 1936, five years after returning from Africa), from a purely technical perspective, undoubtedly must contain elements not remembered to the exact detail or which will have been altered with hindsight intentionally or not. The nature of any recording is really representation and not simply a direct relation of all material facts. Using quotes from academic articles on Out of Africa in combination with the text I will now explore the nature of Blixen's representation of her time in Africa in order to further understand more recent thinking around the term autofiction and its relation to memoir.

In her piece Out of Africa, into World Literature the Danish academic Lasse Horne Kjældgaard, writing about Blixen's first book Seven Gothic Tales, talks about the "patterns of intertextuality that can be found in Karen Blixen’s works, and especially in the Seven Gothic Tales, which contain more than a thousand literary quotations and allusions. In terms of intertextuality, Blixen’s tales are a global literary cuisine" (Kjældgaard 14). Kjældgaard goes further: "As an author Karen Blixen, worked like a bricoleur […] using all available ingredients. In her tales she mixes quotes, allusions, images, and characters sampled from other literature and the arts" (Kjældgaard 15). While Blixen herself, in a surprisingly early example of post-modern self-reflexivity, finishes the end of the very first chapter of Out of Africa with "When I write down as accurately as possible my experiences on the farm, with the country and with some of the inhabitants of the plains and woods, it may have a sort of historical interest" (Blixen) there is no question that other elements also make up part of her works. Consequently we find ourselves in a position where it seems that any autobiographical text is autofiction if anything outside of direct and accurate telling of actual events is included. Continuing down this path of determining or creating new definitions for different types of writing is perhaps not the most fruitful direction to head in therefore and may also explain why umbrella terms such as life writing have entered our vocabulary. Despite this, in her book The Creative Dialectic in Karen Blixen's Essays, academic Marianne Stecher does present us with the term "colonial memoir" (Stecher 156). This definition demands illumination on the nature of Blixen's attitude to colonialism thought by both Stecher and Kjældgaard to be hidden or tempered in Out of Africa: "Kjældgaard rightfully observes that in her carefully constructed literary work, Blixen's 'bitter feelings are tamed in the final text and transformed into a cool and controlled indignation'" (Stecher 182).

In her work Stecher states that "At first glance, Out of Africa presents the reader with an idyllic picture of harmonious colonial relations between Europeans and Africans, upon closer inspection however, it reveals Blixen's ambivalent response to colonialism and her complex narrative practices" (Stecher 157). Stecher goes on to say that while "an author's intentions and the analysis of a literary representation constitute two different approaches to textual study […] the text is often 'double-voiced' or strategic in terms of both colluding and subverting colonialist discourse and ideology" (Stecher 162). She is careful to note however that Blixen had "relatively progressive views in the context of the 1930s" (Stecher 170) and that "It is easy to read ideology backwards, from the present to the past; reading the other way, moving from the past forward to the present, is a more difficult task" (Stecher 163). 

Despite this, Blixen's ambivalence to colonialism is not short of vocal detractors such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, a Kenyan writer and academic who "In an interview in 1991 with Feroza Jussawalla and Reed Dasenbrock, […] was asked about the new 'nostalgia' for things colonial which had pervaded the media (particularly since Sydney Pollack's 1985 film based on Out of Africa). Wa Thiong'o responded that he saw it not as nostalgia but as part of the ideology of neo-colonialism, which is 'passed through works like Out of Africa,' stating that: Karen Blixen was not very different from other settlers, She didn't say, 'I hate African people!' She said, 'I love African people.' But she loved them the same way that people love their animals, their house, and goods and so on" (Stecher 175). It is important to remember though that "The reading experience of a modern black Kenyan will almost certainly be different than that of a white American who is not directly threatened by the continued legacy of colonisation" (Stecher 180). While the white American or similar may think they are not directly threatened by colonialism Stecher does reference Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism which suggests otherwise: "Césaire demonstrates how colonialism, in which he identifies the origins of fascism and Nazism, works also to 'decivilise' the coloniser, writing that 'we must study how colonisation works to decivilise the coloniser, to brutalise him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred and moral relativism'" (Stecher 164).

In conclusion we can say that Out of Africa is not an autobiography and is instead a memoir. A memoir is a subcategory of life writing and so we can also class it as such if required. In terms of autofiction we only have one direct source with which to ascertain whether fictional elements have been added or not, Karen Blixen herself, and she has gone on record as saying it is a truthful account. We can of course make the assumption that she was lying but even if she wasn't there are undoubtedly elements that have been added or missed out simply by the nature of any representation being partial. The term autofiction is also unclear on whether elements taken from other sources to embellish a memoir or give further meaning to the actual events that occurred should count as fictional. If this is the case then almost any form of writing could be considered autofiction making its existence as a term questionable without further definition. Finally, there is Stecher's distinction of the book being a colonial memoir which proved useful when interrogating Blixen and others' attitudes to the subject at the time of the book's conception and publication and, rather than simply memoir, is perhaps the most fitting term for her work Out of Africa.

Bibliography

1. “Autobiography.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autobiography.
2. “Memoir.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir.
3. “Life Writing.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_writing.
4. “Autofiction.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofiction.
van der Liet, Dr. Henk A. "Out of Africa Essay Suggestions." Canvas, 23 Mar, 2020, https://canvas.uva.nl/courses/15770/files/2352132?module_item_id=509849. 
5. Kjældgaard, Lasse Horne. "Out of Africa, into World Literature." Danish Literature as World Literature, edited by Dan Ringgaard & Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, New York / London: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 193-208 [preprint pp. 1-18].
6. Blixen, Karen. Out of Africa. E-book, Penguin, 1954.
7. Stecher, Marianne. The Creative Dialectic in Karen Blixen's Essays. Museum Tusculanum Press, 2014.