Gabrielle, author of eight books, explores the many ways history, time, and place shape our lives.

Born in Berlin in 1942, Gabrielle, her mother and grandmother had to flee in 1945 when their apartment was destroyed by bombs. Her father, a fighter pilot, had been shot down in 1943. Only her grandfather stayed behind to serve as doctor in the devastated city.

This was the beginning of a seemibngly unending string of relocations in Gabrielle’s life. A farmer’s cottage in Germany, a boarding school in Vienna, followed by a long stay in an isolation ward of a big hospital when she came down with scarlet fever, another on the Baltic, frequently shuttled between her mother in Vienna and her grandparents in Northern Germany, she began to feel at home nowhere and everywhere. After a PhD in Drama from the University of London in 1968 Gabrielle taught at US universities and abroad.

Now retired in South Bend on the St. Joseph River, she devotes herself to her twin passions of writing and helping others tell their stories. This confirms her faith in the transformative power of stories, both as readers and as writers.

Selected Awards:

• South Bend Community Hall of Fame 2016

• Keys to the City of South Bend 2006

• Sagamore of the Wabash, Indiana’s highest honor 2006

• Honorary Citizen, Arzberg, Germany 2006

• John Ryan Award for Distinguished Contributions to International Programs, Indiana University 1998

• Lilly Faculty Open Fellowship 1991

• Woodrow Wilson Fellowship 1965; Phi Beta Kappa 1964, Phi Kappa Phi 1964