Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Author profile

born

June 29, 1900 in Lyon, France

died

July 31, 1944

gender

male

website

http://www.antoinedesaintexupery.com/

genre

Philosophy, Children's Books, Nonfiction

About this author

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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons on June 29, 1900. He flew for the first time at the age of twelve, at the Ambérieu airfield, and it was then that he became determined to be a pilot. He kept that ambition even after moving to a school in Switzerland and while spending summer vacations at the family's château at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens, in eastern France. (The house at Saint-Maurice appears again and again in Saint-Exupéry's writing.)

Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the French naval academy and, instead, enrolled at the prestigious art school l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921 Saint-Exupéry began serving in the military, and was stationed in Strasbourg. There he learned to be a pilot, and his career path was forever s...more Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons on June 29, 1900. He flew for the first time at the age of twelve, at the Ambérieu airfield, and it was then that he became determined to be a pilot. He kept that ambition even after moving to a school in Switzerland and while spending summer vacations at the family's château at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens, in eastern France. (The house at Saint-Maurice appears again and again in Saint-Exupéry's writing.)

Later, in Paris, he failed the entrance exams for the French naval academy and, instead, enrolled at the prestigious art school l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1921 Saint-Exupéry began serving in the military, and was stationed in Strasbourg. There he learned to be a pilot, and his career path was forever settled.

After leaving the service, in 1923, Saint-Exupéry worked in several professions, but in 1926 he went back to flying and signed on as a pilot for Aéropostale, a private airline that flew mail from Toulouse, France, to Dakar, Senegal. In 1927 Saint-Exupéry accepted the position of airfield chief for Cape Juby, in southern Morocco, and began writing his first book, a memoir called Southern Mail, which was published in 1929. He then moved briefly to Buenos Aires to oversee the establishment of an Argentinean mail service; when he returned to Paris in 1931, he published Night Flight, which won instant success and the prestigious Prix Femina.

Always daring, Saint-Exupéry tried in 1935 to break the speed record for flying from Paris to Saigon. Unfortunately, his plane crashed in the Libyan desert, and he and his copilot had to trudge through the sand for three days to find help. In 1938 he was seriously injured in a second plane crash, this time as he tried to fly between New York City and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The crash resulted in a long convalescence in New York.

Saint-Exupéry's next novel, Wind, Sand and Stars, was published in 1939. A great success, the book won the Académie Française's Grand Prix du Roman (Grand Prize for Novel Writing) and the National Book Award in the United States. At the beginning of the Second World War, Saint-Exupéry flew reconnaissance missions for France, but he went to New York to ask the United States for help when the Germans occupied his country. He drew on his wartime experiences to write Flight to Arras and Letter to a Hostage, both published in 1942. His classic The Little Prince appeared in 1943. Later in 1943 Saint-Exupéry rejoined his French air squadron in northern Africa. Despite being forbidden to fly (he was still suffering physically from his earlier plane crashes), Saint-Exupéry insisted on being given a mission. On July 31, 1944, he set out from Borgo, Corsica, to overfly occupied France. He never returned.
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Books by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Average rating: 4.18 · 171,847 ratings · 7,258 reviews · 63 distinct works

	The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Richard Howard (Translator) 4.19 avg rating — 165,979 ratings — published 1943 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Wind, Sand, and Stars 4.16 avg rating — 2,064 ratings — published 1939 — 37 editions	My rating:
	The Little Prince & Letter to a Hostage 4.36 avg rating — 1,031 ratings — published 1943 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Night Flight 3.67 avg rating — 1,179 ratings — published 1931 — 41 editions	My rating:
	Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Lewis Galantiere 3.95 avg rating — 346 ratings — published 1942 — 19 editions	My rating:
	J'Apprends A Compter Avec le Petit Prince = Learn to Count with the Little Prince 4.46 avg rating — 208 ratings — published 2002 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Citadelle 4.12 avg rating — 204 ratings — published 1948 — 19 editions	My rating:
	Southern Mail by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Curtis Cate (Translator) 3.69 avg rating — 264 ratings — published 1929 — 16 editions	My rating:
	A Guide for Grown-ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works of Antoine de Saint-Exupery 4.09 avg rating — 101 ratings — published 2002	My rating:
	Une Journée Avec le Petit Prince 4.41 avg rating — 56 ratings — published 2000 — 3 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Goodbye, said the fox. And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

tags: most-famous-novella

1,941 people liked it

“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

tags: love

1,506 people liked it

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

tags: reminding

689 people liked it

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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Quotes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Topics Mentioning This Author

combine editions
Books by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry