Catherine Andrieu
Catherine Andrieu was born in 1978. After a childhood on the Mediterranean coast, she taught philosophy in Aix-en-Provence. She began her career as a painter, influenced by Munch and Pop Art, initially teaching herself to paint in oils, then working with digital drawings based on photographs. She exhibited in the Ardennes region and in Parisian galleries. A tragedy marked her entry into the unique world of poetry and writing. A personal mythology then took shape in some thirty poetic narratives and collections. Since 2021, Catherine Andrieu has lived in Royan, where she continues her singular work while also playing the piano. Her cats hold a special place in her heart and in her art. She received the 2024 Claudine de Tencin Academy International Poetry Prize for her book "Amour, & jeux d'ombre", Éditions Rafael de Surtis, 2022, the third prize in the 2024 UNICEF Euro-poetry competition, in the free poem, free theme category, as well as the third prize in the sixth edition of the CICL (International Literary Creation Competition) in 2025. She is a columnist for RALM (Revue d'art, littérature et musique).
In They Raised Angels on Shards, two collections respond to each other—not as mirrors, but as trembling echoes. On one side, the body rises from the chasm, scarred by a shipwrecked childhood, by fractured silences, by nameless violence inscribed everywhere. On the other, it is breath returning after the fire, the voice still walking when all should have fallen silent. Here, writing soothes nothing. It opens, it pierces. It brings forth, from the ashes, shifting forms, women without boundaries, angels standing on the ruins. It is a book of bone and fire, a book that speaks for those who were shorn, shaved, walled up alive in oblivion. A book that does not forget. That endures. That places words where History averts its gaze. Where the poem becomes a way of breathing in spite of everything. It is not about beauty. It is about verticality. From this raw, irrepressible light, which we still dare to cast into the dark water. And from the gentle insolence of living, even in ashes. Publication date: January 2, 2026 Order Press release
