Jean-Louis Bory

Jean-Louis Bory (25 June 1919 – 11/12 June 1979) was a French writer, journalist, and film critic. Jean-Louis Bory was born on 25 June 1919 in Méréville, Essonne. The son of a pharmacist and a teacher, he came from a family of teachers. With an atheist father and a non-practicing mother, religion played a minor role in his development. It was rather the Popular Front that formed his character. A brilliant student at Étampes, he entered the Lycée Henri-IV. Just when he was ready to enter the École Normale Supérieure in 1939, he was called up for military service. Returning to the Latin Quarter in October 1942, he passed his agrégation des lettres examinations in July 1945. Two months later, Flammarion published his first novel, Mon village à l'heure allemande, which won the Prix Goncourt with the support of Colette. Its sales of 500,000 copies represented an exceptional success, even as he was assigned a position in Haguenau in the province of Bas-Rhin. The money enabled him to buy from the Countess Cally, his aunt, the property his grandparents has acquired in 1880 in Méréville. It was known as "Villa des Iris", and he renamed it "La Calife" or "The Caliph". His second book (Dea...