BLIXEN HOUSE IS CONVERTED TO A MUSEUM IN KENYA

Kenya has converted the Nairobi house of Baroness Karen Blixen, a Danish settler/farmer whose life in Kenya at the beginning of the century is depicted in the Hollywood hit “Out of Africa,” into a museum.

“Our objective is to make (Blixen’s life) a more relevant part of Kenya’s history,” National Museums Director Richard Leakey said as he showed reporters around the farmhouse at the foothills of the picturesque Ngong Hills outside Nairobi.

Readers’ letters published by local newspapers in recent weeks have criticized the film and the government’s decision to establish the museum. The area where Blixen farmed already carries her name.

The baroness might have on occasions shown empathy with the Africans whose lands were taken away by the white settlers but she nevertheless was part and parcel of the whole bitter colonial experience, some of the readers argued.

“Whether you like or dislike the fact that this country was settled by colonial settlers is irrelevant. . . . The museum’s job is to present things as they happened,” Leakey, son of the late Kenyan paleontologist Louis B. Leakey, said.

“Out of Africa,” directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Meryll Streep and Robert Redford, was nominated for several categories in this year’s Hollywood Academy Awards.