Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry[4][Note 1] (French:*[ة‘جƒtwan dة™ sة›جƒtة›ة،zypeتپi]; 29 June 1900*– 31 July 1944) was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist, and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award.[6] He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.

Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa and South America. At the outbreak of war, he joined the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air), flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany. Following a 27-month hiatus in North America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, he joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared over the Mediterranean on a reconnaissance mission in July 1944, and is believed to have died at that time.

Prior to the war, Saint-Exupéry had achieved fame in France as an aviator. His literary works – among them The Little Prince, translated into over 250 languages and dialects – posthumously boosted his stature to national hero status in France.[7][8] He earned further widespread recognition with international translations of his other works. His 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes—Man and His World became the name of an international humanitarian group, and was also used to create the central theme of the most successful world's fair of the 20th century, Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.[9]


Youth t


Birthplace of Saint-Exupéry in the Presqu'île section of Lyon, on the street now named after him, in blue at lower left.
Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon to an aristocratic Catholic family that could trace its lineage back several centuries. He was the third of five children of the Countess Marie de Fonscolombe and Count Jean de Saint Exupéry (1863–1904) .[10][11][Note 2] His father, an executive of the Le Soleil (The Sun) insurance brokerage, died of a stroke in Lyon's La Foux train station before his son's fourth birthday. His father's death had sadly affected the entire family, transforming their status to that of 'impoverished aristocrats'.[13]

Saint-Exupéry had three sisters and a younger blond-haired brother, François, who at age 15 would tragically die of rheumatic fever contracted while both were attending the Marianist College Villa St. Jean in Fribourg, Switzerland, during World War I. Saint-Exupéry attended to his brother, his closest confidant, beside François' death bed, and later wrote that François "...remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a [young] tree falls", imagery which would much later be recrafted into the climactic ending of The Little Prince. At age 17, now the only "man" in the family following the death of his brother, the young author was left as distraught as his mother and sisters, but he soon assumed the mantle of a protector and took to consoling them.[14]