The Tenth Plague

Maria Andreas was born in Algiers in 1950, of French-Swiss nationality. In the 70s, leftist and antimilitarist, she obtained her Baccalaureate at La Chaux-de-fonds. She began her literary studies in Neuchâtel. Then studied at the University of Zürich, from where she graduated.

She embarked then, following the hippie tradition of the time, aboard a small camper van, for a long trip in Asia, then in North Africa. She was fascinated by Buddhism and any new culture.

Following that she worked as a teacher in London.

At the University of Cambridge, she obtained her teaching qualification. (Proficiency)

For 25 years, she taught French literature at the Dr.Pfister Institute in Oberägeri, in German-speaking Switzerland. She learnt there not just her profession, but also the democratic and Christian tradition of Switzerland.

It was illness that compelled her to leave her students!

Based in Bordeaux, she devoted herself to distance learning. 

She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Theology at the Saint-Denys Institute, in Paris.

As well as a certificate of study at the Saint-Serge Institute of Theology, in Paris.

Then, a certificate in Applied Psychology at the IAPP Institute, in Düsseldorf.

At the same time, she participated in a long Jungian analysis with Professor Gérard Ostermann. (Bordeaux)

Trials and sickness projected her to the Byzantine world. She fell in love with the “heart “of the traditional Orthodox monasteries, the Greek language, and stayed for a year in Cyprus.

She then decided to reconnect with her writing, for which she had already won first prize for her dissertation in the European Schools Competition of Strasbourg in 1967.