French aviator and writer, real life hero who looked at adventure and danger with poet's eyes - sometimes from the viewpoint of a child. Saint-Exupéry's most famous work is The Little Prince (1943), which he also illustrated. It has become one of the classics ofchildren's literature of the 20th century. During World War IISaint-Exupéry served as a pilot. He was shot down on a mission overFrance in 1944.

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." (from The Little Prince)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons into an old family of provincial nobility; one of his ancestors had fought with the Americans at Yorktown. His father was an insurance company executive, who died of a stroke in 1904. His artistic talented widow, Marie de (Fonscolombe)Exupéry (1875-1972), moved with her children to Le Mans in 1909. At thecastle of Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens, Saint-Exupéry spent his childhoodyears surrounded by sisters, aunts, cousins, nurses, and fräuleins.He was educated at Jesuit schools in Montgré and Le Mans, and inSwitzerland at a Catholic boarding school (1915-1917), run by theMarianist Fathers in Fribourg. After failing his final examination at auniversity preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts tostudy architecture.

The turning point in Saint-Exupéry's life came in 1921 when he started his military service in the 2ND Regiment of Chasseurs, and was sent to Strasbourg for training as a pilot. He had flown, with a pilot, for the first time in 1912. On July 9, 1921, he made his first flightalone in a Sopwith F-CTEE. Next year Saint-Exupéry obtained his pilot'slicence, and was offered a transfer to the air force. However, when hisfiancée's family objected, he settled in Paris where he took an officejob and started to write. The following years were unlucky. Hisengagement with Louise de Vilmorin broke off, and he had no success inhis work and business - he had several jobs, including that ofbookkeeper and automobile salesman. Saint-Exupéry's first tale,'L'Aviateur' was published in 1926 in the literary magazine Le Navired'argent. His true calling Saint-Exupéry then found in flying themail for the commercial airline company Aéropostale. He flew the mailover North Africa for three years, escaping death several times. In 1928he became the director of the remote Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro,Sahara. His house was a wooden shack and he slep on a thin strawmattress. "I have never loved my house more than when I lived in thedesert," he recalled.

In this isolation Saint-Exupéry learned to love the desert, and used its harsh beauty as the background for The Little Prince and The Wisdom of the Sands (1948). During these years Saint-Exupéry wrote his first novel, Southern Mail (1929), which celebrated thecourage of the early pilots, flying at the limits of safety, to speed onthe mail and win a commercial advantage over rail and steamship rivals.Another story line in the work depicted the author's failed love affairwith the novelist Louise de Vilmorin.

"Over and done with. Thirty thousand letters come safely through. The airline company kept drilling it into you: the precious mail, more precious than life itself. Enough to keep thirty thousand lovers going... Lovers, be patient! In the sinking fireof sunset here we come. Behind Bernis the clouds are thick, churned bythe whirlwind in its mountain bowl. Before him lies a land decked out insunlight, the tender muslin of the meadows, the rich tweed of thewoods, the ruffled veil of the sea." (from NightFlight)

In 1929 Saint-Exupéry moved to South America, where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company.

Saint-Exupéry flew post through the Andes. This experience gave the basis for his second novel, Night Flight, which became an international bestseller, won the Prix Femina, and was adapted for screen in 1933, starring Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. In the storyRivière, the hard-bitten airport chief, has left behind all thoughts ofretirement and sees the work of flying the mail as his fate. "We don'task to be eternal', he thought. 'What we ask is not to see acts andobjects abruptly lose their meaning. The void surrounding us thensuddenly yawns on every side." (from Night Flight)

Saint-Exupéry married in 1931 Consuelo Gómez Carillo, a widow, whose other literary friends included Maurice Maeterlinck and Gabriele D'Annunzio. "He wasn't like other people," she wrote later in Mémoires de la rose, "but like a child or an angel who has fallen down fromthe sky." The marriage was stormy. Consuelo was jealous for good reasonsand felt neglected, when her husband did not spend much time at home.He also had affairs with other women.

After the air mail business in Argentina was closed down, Saint-Exupéry started to fly post between Casablanca and Port-Étienne and then he served as a test pilot for Air France and other airline companies. He wrote for Paris-Soir and covered the May Day eventsin Moscow in 1936, and wrote a series of articles on the Spanish CivilWar. Saint-Exupéry lived a traveling, adventurous life: he persuadedAir-France to let him fly a Caudron Simoun (F-ANRY), and had an aviationaccident in 1935 in North Africa. He walked in the desert for daysbefore being saved by a caravan. In 1937, he bought another CaudronSimoun, and was severely injured in Guatemala in a plane crash.

Encouraged by his friend André Gide, Saint-Exupéry wrote during his convalescence a book about the pilot's profession. Wind, Sand and Stars, which appeared in 1939, won the French Academy's 1939 Grand Prix du Roman and the National Book Award in the United States. Thedirector Jean Renoir(1894-1979) wanted to shoot the film and had conversations with theauthor, mostly about literary subjects which he recorded. At that timeRenoir worked in Hollywood where everyone shot on sets. Renoir's ideawas to make the film at the locations described in the text. The bookhad been successful in the U.S. but nobody wanted to produce its filmversion.

After the fall of France in World War II Saint-Exupéry joined the army, and made several daring flights, although he was considered unable to fly military planes because of his several injures. However, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In June he went to live with his sister inthe Unoccupied Zone of France, and then he escaped to the United States.When the Vichy régime appointed him to its National Council, heprotested at this "untimely appointment." Saint-Exupéry was criticizedby his countrymen for not supporting de Gaulle's Free France forces inLondon. Flight to Arras (1942), published in New York, depictshis hopeless flight over the enemy lines, when France was alreadybeaten. The book was banned in France by the German authorities. In 1943he rejoined the French air force in North Africa. Also in Algiers hecontinued his lifelong habit of writing in the air. After a bad landinghis commanding officer decided that he was too old to go on flying, butafter a pause he was allowed to rejoin his unit. In 1943 Saint-Exupérypublished his best-known work, The Little Prince (1943), achildren's fable for adults, which has been translated into over 150languages. It has been claimend that The Little Prince is thebest-selling bookafter the Bible and Karl Marx's Das Kapital.Saint-Exupéry devoted to book to his friend Léon Werth. Its narrator isa pilot who has crash-landed in a desert. He meets a boy, who turns outto be a prince from another planet. The prince tells about hisadventures on Earth and about his precious rose from his planet. He isdisappointed when he discovers that roses are common on Earth. A desertfox convinces him that the prince should love his own rare rose andfinding thus meaning to his life, the prince returns back home. The rarerose is usually interpreted as Consuelo.