Jean-Marie Apostolidès

Jean-Marie Apostolidès (apɔstɔlidɛs; 27 November 1943 – 23 March 2023) was a French novelist, essayist, playwright, theatre director, and university professor. Apostolidès was born during World War II in the village of Saint-Bonnet-Tronçais in Auvergne. His grandfather, Evangel Apostolidès, was a Greek doctor from Asia Minor. After his studies in France, Evangel did not return home because of the rise to power of Mustafa Kemal. The childhood of Jean-Marie Apostolidès was profoundly marked by religion and its dogma; when his father Paul found out his parents had lived together without being married, he was horrified, and decided to "pay for their sins" by becoming a fervent Catholic. His work is marked by the themes of maintaining order through religion and implacable desire for social promotion. Apostolidès grew up in Troyes, a traditional and bourgeois French town. His autobiographical novel, L’Audience, recounts his upbringing in this provincial city and paints a memorable picture of French life in the 1950s-1960s. This work centers on the author's life-altering encounter with Pope Pius XII, a “minor episode” that led him to abandon religion and devote himself to theater. Following his “first vocation,” Apostolidès studied theater in Paris with Tania Balachova, then moved on to the study of psychology and the social sciences, obtaining a master in psychology in Nanterre, in 1968. He then moved to Canada (Toronto, then Montreal) where he taught psychology. In 1972 his first play "Bobby Boom" was directed by Olivier Reichenbach, set design by Guy Neveu, at the Théâtre du Gèsu in Montreal. In 1972 he returned to France and undertook a doctorate in sociology with Jean Duvignaud as director. During this period, while teaching at the university of Tours, Apostolidès founded a production company and directed short films with Bertrand Renaudineau. He defended his thesis and obtained his doctorat d’état in literature and the social sciences in 1977.