Adam Ehrlich Sachs lives and works in Pittsburgh. He has an AB in atmospheric science and an MA in the history of science from Harvard University. The author of two books of fiction, Sachs’s writing has appeared in the New Yorker, n+1, and Harper’s, among other publications. His first book, Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables, and Problems (Regan Arts, 2016), was a finalist for the 2017 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. His story “The Philosophers” was named a Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories 2017. In 2018, Sachs received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in literature. His novel The Organs of Sense was published in May 2019 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Writer
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Ballet Master: A Novel
At the Academy, Sachs will be working on his next novel, tentatively titled “The Ballet Master,” about an Expressionist choreographer and his daughters at the moment of his break from ballet. When their mother, the prima ballerina of their father’s company, collapses onstage, the fortunes of the two girls diverge: the elder, her legs already turned out in the proper balletic manner, continues her training in ballet, while the younger, under the watchful eye of her father, explores other, more peculiar forms of movement, for which he, disturbed by the evanescence of dance, devises an unusual method of preserving. Their artistic idyll is threatened by a young psychiatrist who becomes intrigued by the goings-on in their villa. “‘The Ballet Master,’” writes Sachs, “draws on fairy tale and historical fact in order to examine the enigmas of self-expression—in art and in science, in families and in isolation. What, if anything, do we have to express, and how, if at all, do we express it?”
Meet Adam Ehrlich Sachs
A short portrait filmed at the Hans Arnhold Center, introducing the work and ideas behind this semester in Berlin.
Upcoming events
Discover what’s coming up in the Academy’s public program this semester.
Past events
Lectures, readings, and conversations from the Academy’s public program.
Past event
A Reading from “The Organs of Sense”
Adam Ehrlich Sachs reads from his new novel, “The Organs of Sense,” at the English Theatre Berlin
16 Sep 2019
Past event
A Reading from “The Organs of Sense”
Adam Ehrlich Sachs reads from his new novel,”The Organs of Sense.”
12 Sep 2019
Berlin Journal Articles
Essays, interviews, and creative work published in the Academy’s annual magazine.
Books
Books written by fellows of the Academy, many begun during a semester in Berlin.
Videos
Lectures, readings, and conversations filmed at the Hans Arnhold Center.
Fellow Spotlight: Adam Ehrlich Sachs
Adam Ehrlich Sachs discusses his novel The Organs of Sense, about a young Leibniz’s encounter with a blind astronomer.
28 Aug 2019
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