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  • Author
· French · 1900–1944

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

An aristocrat who flew the mail over the Sahara and the Andes and wrote the books that made those flights literature. Paris crowned him with the Prix Femina, one of France's leading literary prizes, in 1931, and with the novel prize of the Académie française — the official guardian of the French language — in 1939. Then, in wartime exile, he wrote Le Petit Prince ('The Little Prince') in New York, where it was published in 1943. France did not see it until 1946, two years after he disappeared over the Mediterranean.

Details

Lived
1900–1944
Born
29 June 1900
Birthplace
Lyon, France
Died
31 July 1944 · aged 44
Place of death
Lost over the Mediterranean, off Marseille
Nationality
French
Profession
Airmail pilot and writer
Major works
Courrier Sud, Vol de nuit, Terre des hommes, Pilote de guerre, Le Petit Prince
Roles
Author

About Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon on 29 June 1900 into an old aristocratic family, learned to fly during his military service, and in 1926 took a job carrying the mail for the Toulouse airline that became the Aéropostale. That is the whole engine of his writing. Everything he is famous for came out of flying a fragile aeroplane, alone, at night, over the Sahara, the Atlantic and the Andes, in an era when the airline lost pilots steadily and getting the letters through counted for more than the odds on the man carrying them.

His relationship with literary Paris was real but oddly distant, and it is worth stating plainly rather than dressing up. He almost never lived there as a working writer: he was a pilot in Toulouse, in the Moroccan desert and in Argentina, and later a reserve airman and an exile. What Paris did was judge him and crown him — the Prix Femina, one of the country's leading literary prizes, in 1931 for Vol de nuit ('Night Flight'), and the Grand Prix du roman, the novel prize of the Académie française, France's official academy of letters, in 1939 for Terre des hommes ('Land of Men', published in English as Wind, Sand and Stars). Then came the strangest fact in modern French letters. Le Petit Prince — The Little Prince, the story of a pilot stranded in the desert and the small boy from another planet who questions him, and the most translated French book of the century — was written and first published in New York, in 1943, while its author was in wartime exile. It did not appear in France until 1946, two years after he had flown out of Corsica on 31 July 1944 and not come back.

The aristocrat who took a delivery job

Saint-Exupéry was born on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, into a titled family with a long name and not much money left behind it. He got his pilot's licence during military service between 1921 and 1923, and in 1926 he joined the Compagnie Latécoère — the Toulouse company, soon renamed the Aéropostale, that had set itself the job of flying letters from France down the west coast of Africa and eventually across the South Atlantic to Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

It is hard to overstate how dangerous this was. The aircraft were single-engined, the navigation was by compass and eyesight, the deserts below were hostile, and the company lost pilots steadily. In 1927 Saint-Exupéry was posted as station chief at Cap Juby, a remote airstrip on the Atlantic coast of the Spanish Sahara, in what is now Morocco — a fort in the sand whose job was to receive the mail planes and get the downed ones back. From 1929 to 1931 he ran flight operations for Aeroposta Argentina, the company's Argentine subsidiary, opening the routes down into Patagonia at the southern end of the continent. He was, as the French reference works put it, one of the pioneers of what may have been the last epic — the few years in which crossing the world by air still depended on one man's nerve in an open cockpit.

Books made out of night flights

He wrote about the work while doing it. His first book, Courrier Sud (1929) — 'Southern Mail' — came out of the African run. Vol de nuit (1931), 'Night Flight', is about the men who fly the mail after dark and the manager on the ground who sends them, and it made him famous: it won the Prix Femina, a French literary prize decided each year by a jury of women writers in Paris and one of the two or three that matter most in France.

In December 1935 he tried for a prize of a different kind, attempting the Paris–Saigon speed record, and came down in the Libyan desert — a forced landing in open sand that he survived. The desert went into Terre des hommes (1939), published in English as Wind, Sand and Stars: a book of linked reflections rather than a novel, arguing that a man discovers what he is through solidarity and duty rather than through freedom alone. It won the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française — the novel prize of the Académie française, the body of forty writers and scholars, elected for life, that sits under the dome on the quai de Conti in Paris and appoints itself the guardian of the French language. Those two prizes are the real shape of his Paris career: the city read him, ranked him and decorated him, and he kept leaving.

New York, 1941–1943: the most famous French book of the century

France fell to Germany in June 1940. Saint-Exupéry, who had flown reconnaissance in the losing campaign, went into exile in North America and stayed about twenty-seven months. He wrote Pilote de guerre (1942) — 'War Pilot', published in English as Flight to Arras — his account of a hopeless reconnaissance sortie during the defeat, and Lettre à un otage (1943), 'Letter to a Hostage', an open letter to a friend left behind in occupied France.

And in 1943, in New York, he wrote and drew Le Petit Prince — 'The Little Prince'. The plainest way to say it is the accurate way: the most famous French book of the twentieth century — a pilot down in the Sahara, a small boy from an asteroid, a fox, a rose — was made in Manhattan by a Frenchman who could not go home, and was published there first, in 1943, in English and in French. It reached France only in 1946. Its author had been dead for two years by then. He dedicated it to his friend Léon Werth, a writer stranded in occupied France — and then, correcting himself in a second dedication, to Léon Werth when he was a little boy. The Larousse encyclopedia calls it a false children's tale that resembles a true parable for adults, and it has become one of the most translated works in the world.

31 July 1944

He was forty-four, well over the age limit of the American squadron he talked his way into, and physically wrecked by old crashes. He flew anyway. On the morning of 31 July 1944, at 8.35, he took off from the base at Borgo in Corsica in a Lockheed P-38 Lightning stripped of its guns and fitted with cameras, aircraft number 223. It was his tenth war mission: to photograph German military positions in the Grenoble–Annecy region of occupied France. He did not return, and for fifty-four years nobody knew where he had gone down. French reference works record that he was most likely shot down by a German fighter off Marseille, but the account has never been settled.

In September 1998 a trawler skipper named Jean-Claude Bianco, working the boat Horizon off Marseille, pulled up in his nets a silver identity bracelet engraved ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY. In October 2003 the deep-sea company COMEX raised pieces of a P-38 from about sixty metres of water near the île de Riou, a bare island off the Marseille coast, and the wreck was formally identified by the researcher Philippe Castellano from the number 2734 stamped on the cradle of the turbocharger. The aircraft was his. The sea had kept both the man who wrote about a pilot stranded in a desert and the aeroplane that put him there.

Life events

  1. 1900

    Born in Lyon on 29 June, into an old aristocratic family.

    — Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de (1900–1944); La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  2. 1921–1923

    Obtains his pilot's licence during military service.

    — La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  3. 1926

    Joins the Toulouse airline Compagnie Latécoère — soon the Aéropostale — as a line pilot carrying the mail south.

    — La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  4. 1927

    Posted as station chief at Cap Juby, the isolated airstrip on the Saharan coast of Morocco.

    — La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  5. 1929

    Publishes Courrier Sud — 'Southern Mail' — his first book, and moves to Argentina to run operations for the airline's subsidiary Aeroposta Argentina until 1931.

    — La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  6. 1931

    Vol de nuit — 'Night Flight', on the men who fly the mail after dark — wins the Prix Femina, a major French literary prize judged by a jury of women writers, and makes his name.

    — La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  7. 1935

    Crashes in the Libyan desert in December during an attempt on the Paris–Saigon record, and survives the walk out.

    — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

  8. 1939

    Terre des hommes — 'Land of Men', published in English as Wind, Sand and Stars — wins the Grand Prix du roman, the novel prize of the Académie française, France's official academy of letters.

    — La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

  9. 1941–1943

    Spends about twenty-seven months in exile in North America after the fall of France, writing Pilote de guerre (1942), 'War Pilot', and Lettre à un otage (1943), 'Letter to a Hostage'.

    — La biographie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry

  10. 1943

    Le Petit Prince — 'The Little Prince', a downed pilot in the Sahara and the boy from another planet who questions him — is written in New York and published there: the most famous French book of the century, made in Manhattan.

    — La biographie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry; Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

  11. 1944

    Takes off from Borgo in Corsica at 8.35 on the morning of 31 July in an unarmed camera-fitted P-38 Lightning, on his tenth war mission — to photograph German positions around Grenoble and Annecy — and disappears.

    — Lightning P-38 F-5B — l’avion de la dernière mission; La biographie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry

  12. 1946

    Le Petit Prince is published in France, two years after its author's death.

    — La biographie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry

  13. 1998

    In September the trawler skipper Jean-Claude Bianco pulls a silver bracelet engraved ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY out of the sea off Marseille.

    — Lightning P-38 F-5B — l’avion de la dernière mission

  14. 2003

    In October the deep-sea company COMEX raises the wreck of a P-38 from sixty metres of water near the île de Riou; it is identified as his by the number 2734 on the turbocharger cradle.

    — Lightning P-38 F-5B — l’avion de la dernière mission

People they knew

Documented connections — every one carries its source.

Illustrated portrait of André Gide

André Gide

  • Author
  • Playwright
  • Translator

Met · 1929–1944

The introduction came through the Paris salons: Gide was a fixture of Yvonne de Lestrange's, and she warmly recommended her cousin Antoine, then trying to write, to him. Saint-Exupéry sent Gide the manuscript of Courrier Sud, and on his return from Argentina gave him Vol de nuit, for which Gide offered to write the preface — the preface Larousse quotes on the novel that took the Prix Femina in 1931. The friendship was close enough to alarm Saint-Exupéry's mother, who thought Gide unfit company, and Antoine defended him to her by letter more than once. Gide told him to reorder the chapters of Terre des hommes and handed him Conrad's The Mirror of the Sea to show that a good book could be made of disparate pieces. They were together at Chitré in August 1938 and again in Algiers in 1943, where they played chess; days before Saint-Exupéry disappeared in July 1944 he offered Gide a flight, and Gide pleaded a cough.

— André Gide (1869 – 1951) — Les amis; Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Questions about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Who was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?

A French airmail pilot and writer, born in Lyon in 1900 and lost over the Mediterranean in 1944. He flew for the Aéropostale — the Toulouse company that carried letters across the Sahara and the South Atlantic — and turned that work into books: Courrier Sud (1929, 'Southern Mail'), Vol de nuit (1931, 'Night Flight'), Terre des hommes (1939, 'Land of Men', in English Wind, Sand and Stars) and Pilote de guerre (1942, 'War Pilot'). He is known worldwide for Le Petit Prince — The Little Prince — which he wrote and published in New York in 1943.

Where was The Little Prince written?

In New York. Saint-Exupéry went into exile in North America after France fell to Germany in 1940 and stayed roughly twenty-seven months, and it was there that he wrote and drew Le Petit Prince. It was first published in New York in 1943, in English and in French. It did not appear in France until 1946 — two years after its author had disappeared.

Why is a French book like The Little Prince published in America first?

Because France was under German occupation and its author was not in it. Saint-Exupéry left after the defeat of 1940 and spent the war years abroad; his French publishing world was cut off, and the book was made and issued where he was living. That is the plain reason the most translated French book of the twentieth century has a New York first edition and a 1946 French one.

What was the Aéropostale?

A French airline based in Toulouse, originally the Compagnie Latécoère, which from the 1920s flew mail from France down the west coast of Africa and across the South Atlantic into Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The aircraft were single-engined, navigation was largely by eye, and the death rate among pilots was appalling. Saint-Exupéry joined in 1926, ran the desert airstrip at Cap Juby in Morocco from 1927, and directed operations in Argentina from 1929 to 1931.

How did Saint-Exupéry die?

He vanished on a reconnaissance flight. On 31 July 1944 he took off at 8.35 in the morning from Borgo in Corsica, flying an unarmed P-38 Lightning fitted with cameras, on his tenth war mission — photographing German positions around Grenoble and Annecy in occupied France — and never came back. French reference works record that he was most likely shot down by a German fighter off Marseille, but no account of his last minutes has ever been established.

Was Saint-Exupéry's plane ever found?

Yes, more than half a century later. In September 1998 a trawler skipper off Marseille, Jean-Claude Bianco, brought up in his nets a silver identity bracelet engraved with the name ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY. In October 2003 the deep-sea company COMEX raised pieces of a P-38 Lightning from about sixty metres of water near the île de Riou, and the researcher Philippe Castellano formally identified the aircraft from the number 2734 stamped on its turbocharger cradle.

Did Saint-Exupéry live in Paris?

Hardly at all as a working writer, and it is worth saying so honestly. He was born in Lyon, flew for a Toulouse-based airline, was stationed in the Sahara and in Argentina, and spent the war in North America. What Paris supplied was judgment: its literary establishment gave him the Prix Femina, one of the country's leading book prizes, in 1931 for Vol de nuit ('Night Flight'), and the Grand Prix du roman of the Académie française, the official academy of the French language, in 1939 for Terre des hommes ('Land of Men'). The city read him and crowned him; he kept flying somewhere else.

Sourced claims

Every connection the graph holds for Antoine, with the evidence behind it.

Met · 1929–1944

André Gide

The introduction came through the Paris salons: Gide was a fixture of Yvonne de Lestrange's, and she warmly recommended her cousin Antoine, then trying to write, to him. Saint-Exupéry sent Gide the manuscript of Courrier Sud, and on his return from Argentina gave him Vol de nuit, for which Gide offered to write the preface — the preface Larousse quotes on the novel that took the Prix Femina in 1931. The friendship was close enough to alarm Saint-Exupéry's mother, who thought Gide unfit company, and Antoine defended him to her by letter more than once. Gide told him to reorder the chapters of Terre des hommes and handed him Conrad's The Mirror of the Sea to show that a good book could be made of disparate pieces. They were together at Chitré in August 1938 and again in Algiers in 1943, where they played chess; days before Saint-Exupéry disappeared in July 1944 he offered Gide a flight, and Gide pleaded a cough.

— André Gide (1869 – 1951) — Les amis; Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

References

References

The sources below include biographies, scholarly essays, interviews, and primary materials that informed this page. They reflect both the historical record and ongoing critical conversations about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and their work.

  1. 1Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de (1900–1944)

    Bibliothèque nationale de France

    The French national library's authority record — birth in Lyon, and the death of 31 July 1944 registered as "Mort pour la France", the official French status for those killed in the service of the country.

    View source

  2. 2La vie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry — repères chronologiques

    La Succession Saint Exupéry – d’Agay

    The family estate's chronology — the pilot's licence, Latécoère and the Aéropostale, Cap Juby, Argentina, and the prizes.

    View source

  3. 3La biographie d’Antoine de Saint Exupéry

    La Succession Saint Exupéry – d’Agay

    The estate's biography — the twenty-seven months of exile in North America, and Le Petit Prince published in New York in 1943 and in France only in 1946.

    View source

  1. 4Lightning P-38 F-5B — l’avion de la dernière mission

    La Succession Saint Exupéry – d’Agay

    The estate on the last flight from Borgo, the 1998 bracelet in a trawler's nets, and the 2003 recovery and identification of the wreck.

    View source

  2. 5Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    Encyclopédie Larousse

    Life and works, the 1935 Paris–Saigon crash in the desert, and Le Petit Prince written in New York in 1943.

    View source

  3. 6Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (littérature)

    Encyclopédie Larousse

    On his standing as a writer, the aviation epic, and the reading of Le Petit Prince as a parable for adults.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references anchor the page in the documented record and in the scholarly conversations around Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Every claim on this page traces back to one or more of the works listed here.

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