Her description of and buy-in to some of the repressive laws of British colonial Kenya banning certain Kikuyu dances and making it illegal for the Masai to possess spears, for example, bring to mind the worst and most limited white fear-mongering pith-helmeted petty bureaucrats set on trying to control their subjects. Yet her continual references to 'my houseboys' and 'my squatters,' and the ways in which she attempts to sum up the attitudes and behaviors of entire tribes based on the few she knows, and the horrifying observations about the mental capacities of certain tribes can't help but be severely cringe-worthy. She does her best, within the context of the insane colonialist attitudes in which she and the British colonialist government are steeped, to care for her workers and their families. The author clearly cares about the people who work on her coffee plantation, and takes pains to adjudicate disputes fairly and equitably.

This is such a period piece, written by a titled and entitled European who was nonetheless pretty enlightened for her time and class. Insanely unwoke and colonialist but beautiful In all they provide a moving final chapter to her African reminiscences. The first three were written in the 1950s and the last, 'Echoes from the Hills', was written especially for this volume in the summer of 1960, when the author was in her 70s. With warmth and humanity, these four stories illuminate her love for the African people, their dignity and traditions, and the beauty and wildness of the landscape.

Isak Dineson takes up the absorbing story of her life in Kenya begun in the unforgettable Out of Africa, which she published under the name of Karen Blixon. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom of her guests, from the Prince of Wales to Knudsen, the old charcoal burner, who visited her of primitive festivals of big game that were her near neighbors - lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffaloes and of Lulu, the little gazelle who came to live with her, unbelievably ladylike and beautiful. In this audiobook, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya.

Karen blixen shadows on the grass