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.

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.

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.

Her 1993 novel, Music for Glass Orchestra, garnered much critical acclaim for its wildly beautiful, surrealistic style. 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.

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).

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.