Jean-Marie Apostolidès (; born 1943) is a Greek-French novelist, essayist, playwright, theater director, and university professor. He was born in Saint-Bonnet-Tronçais, France, on 27 November 1943. Biography 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. From 1981 to 1982, Apostolidès worked with Jean Gascon, French-Canadian theater director, on adapting Oedipus Rex for the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. He has been teaching in the United States since 1979, first at Stanford University (1979–1981), then at Harvard (1981–1987). In 1987 he returned to Stanford where he is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French. He teaches literature and drama. Apostolidès is the theorist of iconomy, a new field of study of images and of their effects on people. Oeuvre Jean-Marie Apostolidès’ oeuvre focuses on theater and social history. The author draws on his knowledge of psychoanalysis, anthropology, sociology, and literature aiming to “tap into what cannot be discerned by social actors.” His first two books – Le Roi-Machine (1981), Le Prince sacrifié (1985) – deal with spectacle and court pageantry under the reign of Louis XIV. Another work in line with Le Roi-Machine is his essay Cyrano. Qui fut tout et qui ne fut rien, a literary and political analysis of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac. Apostolidès has written a number of plays, which have been staged in France, Canada, and the United