Grace Andreacchi

Grace Andreacchi (born December 3, 1954) is an American-born author known for her blend of poetic language and modernism with a post-modernist sensibility. Andreacchi is active as a novelist, poet and playwright.

Biography

Grace Andreacchi was born and grew up in New York City. She was educated at the Academy of Mount St. Ursula High School, and went on to study theatre at the Stella Adler Studio. A brief period on the stage was followed by the study of philosophy, first at Hunter College (New York City), and then at Binghamton University (Binghamton, New York). In her final year she received a fellowship to study at Bedford College, London. During this time she specialised in the philosophies of ancient Greece and medieval Europe, as well as additional studies in Chinese philosophy and freudian thought. Her early marriage (1976) to Edward Hadas has resulted in three children. Since 1989 Andreacchi has lived in Europe, moving first to Paris, then rural Normandy, and later to Berlin (1994–1998) and London, where she now resides. In 2008 she founded Andromache Books, a writers' cooperative, to publish literary fiction and poetry.

Works

Her first work was the play Vegetable Medley (1985, Soho Repertory Theater, New York and Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts), an experimental work fusing elements of comedy and melodrama in a highly poeticised language. Her first novel, Give My Heart Ease (1989), received the New American Writing Award and was translated into Slovenian as Pomiri mi srce. Admired by some critics, others found its frank depiction of an abusive sexual relationship disturbing.^[1]

Her 1993 novel, Music for Glass Orchestra, garnered much critical acclaim for its wildly beautiful, surrealistic style.^[2][3] Set in Paris, it contains a wide-ranging discourse on the music of J.S. Bach, with special attention to the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Her first collection of poetry, Elysian Sonnets and Other Poems (1990) was published as a chapbook in Paris.^[4]

In 1995 Andreacchi was a collaborator in the project Violin Music in the Age of Shopping, a work by avant-garde composer and violinist Jon Rose. For her contribution Andreacchi was made an Honorary Fellow of the Rosenberg Foundation (Sydney, Australia).^[5]

The novel Scarabocchio (1995), an architecturally adventurous ‘inverted fugue’, is based on Goethe’s Italian Journey, and continues the discussion of Bach through the character of ‘Barton Beale’, a lightly fictionalized Glenn Gould. The short novel Poetry and Fear (2001) is set in the Berlin opera world, and uses the myth of Orpheus to explore themes of love and loss. Recent works show an increased emphasis on Christian spiritual themes. A continued interest in the culture of the far east is reflected in Two Brothers (2007), a version of the Korean pansori tale Heungbu and Nolbu.

Bibliography

Novels

• Give My Heart Ease ISBN 0-932966-90-X (1989)
• Music for Glass Orchestra ISBN 1-85242-299-8 (1993)
• The Prodigy ISBN 978-1-4452-0980-7 (1994, first complete print edition 2009)
• Scarabocchio ISBN 978-1-4092-3643-6 (2008)
• Poetry and Fear ISBN 978-1-4092-3642-9 (2008)

Plays

• Vegetable Medley (1985)
• Raphael and Tobias (1994)
• Two Brothers ISBN 978-1-4092-3672-6 (2007)
• Agnes in Dappled Things 2008
• Lawrence in Dappled Things 2008
• Two Martyr Plays ISBN 978-1-4092-3768-6 (contains both Agnes and Lawrence) (2009)
• Raphael and Tobias ISBN 978-1-4461-3340-8, ebook version ISBN 978-1-4461-2880-0. 2010

Short fiction

• Envy (1987)
• The Golden Dolphins (The Carolina Quarterly 1991)
• Sic et Non (1992)
• The Black Swan (1994)
• Sesame and Roses (1994)
• Violin Music in the Age of Shopping -The Judy Papers (Editors Jon Rose and Rainer Linz) ISBN 0-646-18105-X,(NMA Publications, 1994)
• The Princess Trigona (1995)
• The Adventures of Little Crow (2004)

Poetry

• Elysian Sonnets and Other Poems (The Paris Press 1990)
• Gestes Interdits (1990)
• Demon Gold (1991)
• Sky Country (1993)
• To Orpheus (1998)
• Eurydice (1999)
• Songs for a Mad Queen (2000)
• Butterfly Nights (2002)
• The Palace of White Death (2003)
• Paper Flowers (2004)
• Two Hands Clapping (with artist Alexandra Rozenman) ISBN 978-1-4092-9978-3 (2009)
• Berlin Elegies ISBN 978-1-4452-1640-9, ebook ISBN 978-1-4461-2878-7 (2010)
• Little Poems for Children ISBN 978-1-4457-6338-5 (2010)
• Ten Poems for the End of Time ISBN 978-1-326-49489-6 (2015)

References

External links

• Grace Andreacchi's website
• An interview with Grace Andreachi on Authortrek
• Grace Andreacchi at LibraryThing
• Grace Andreacchi on Poets & Writers
• Grace Andreacchi on doollee