Patti M. Marxsen

Patti M. Marxsen's essays, articles, translations, and reviews have appeared in Asymptote, Fourth Genre, The French Review, the Women's Review of Books, Critical Flame, the Journal of Haitian Studies, and Transitions Magazine, among others.

Often focused the Francophone world, her work encompasses expertise in Haitian literature and keen observations of life in Switzerland, where she lived for fifteen years while translating two books by C.F. Ramuz (1878-1947). Her own books include the only biography in English of the little-known wife of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. "Helene Schweitzer: A Life of Her Own" (Syracuse University Press, 2015) traces the life of a remarkable woman from Berlin to French Equatorial Africa and back again. Marxsen’s bio of a Haitian icon, "Jacques Roumain: A Life of Resistance” (Caribbean Studies Press) was honored with the 2019 Book Prize of the Haitian Studies Association.

Marxsen's most recent book combines biographical study and literary criticism as it presents a "deep dive" into the making of Karen Blixen's famous memoir "Out of Africa," which was first published in 1937. This includes a fresh reading of the twentieth-century classic in light of changing perspectives and three generations of scholarship that shape our reading of "Out of Africa," especially in relation to colonialism, otherness, feminism, and the film that swept the Academy Awards when it appeared 40 years ago. "Karen Blixen's Search for Self: The Making of 'Out of Africa'" is availble from LSU Press (2026).

Marxsen lives on the coast of Maine and travels frequently to Europe.