Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born June 29, 1900, in Lyon, France. The son of a family of aristocrats, he had a happy and untroubled childhood, despite his fatherless at around four years of age. His interest in airplanes started in his childhood. After surviving a few plane crashes and experiencing great success as a writer, he died on July 31, 1944, during a war mission.
The writer became famous when his book Night flight was adapted for American cinema. In addition, your work land of men became a best seller and was awarded by the French Academy. However, the author is best known for his children's book The little Prince, which tells the story of a mysterious boy and a pilot lost in the Sahara desert.
Read too: Alexandre Dumas – author linked to French romanticism
Biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born on June 29, 1900, in Lyon, in the France. He was the son of Count Jean-Marc de Saint-Exupéry (1863-1904), and lost his father when he was approximately four years old. Thus, her mother — Marie de Saint-Exupéry (1875-1972) — had to raise her five children on her own.
So they went to live in the castle of La Môle, with Marie's parents. Three years later, her father also died, due to Spanish flu. The writer's mother then decided to live with her great-aunt, Gabrielle Tricaud, in Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens. In 1909, they moved to Le Mans at the request of Fernand de Saint-Exupéry, the writer's paternal grandfather.
However, Marie's two eldest daughters continued to live with Mrs. Tricaud. Thus, Antoine, his two brothers and his mother took up residence in the Maillets neighborhood, and the writer began studying at Sainte-Croix boarding school. During the holidays, in 1912, he made his first flight, in the company of pilot Gabriel Wroblewski-Salvez.
With the beginning of First World War, Marie decided to return to live in the castle of Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens. In 1915, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry she went to study at a boarding school at Switzerland. So, two years later, she earned her bachelor's degree and decided to enter the Naval School.
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In 1918, the author moved in with a cousin — Yvonne de Lestrange (1892-1981) — who was married to the Count of Trévise, in Paris. She owned a literary salon, where Antoine she had the opportunity to meet writers like André Gide (1869-1951). The following year, he failed the oral exam to enter the Escola Naval.
In the year 1921, entered the military service as an assistant mechanic., in the aviation section, in Strasbourg. Months later, he was transferred to Morocco. At the end of the year, he got his military pilot's license. As early as 1923, suffered his first plane crash, during a leisurely flight, which earned him some bruises.
That same year, he was released from military service. The writer's intention then was to join the Air Force, but this idea was opposed by his fiancée, the writer Louise de Vilmorin (1902-1969). However, their engagement to her only lasted a few months.
Saint-Éxupery did not fulfill his professional dream and ended up working in unsatisfactory jobs, until he got a job at the airline Aéropostale. So in 1927 he became manager at Cape Juby and was responsible for air mail between Casablanca and Dakar. too it was the writer's job to use diplomacy to free pilots who crashed into the desert and became hostages to some tribes. During this period, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote his novel South post.
Your move to the Argentina, where he worked as manager of Aéropostale, took place in 1929. The following year, on April 7, 1930, received the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor. As early as 1931, he married Salvadoran Consuelo Gómez Carrillo (1901-1979), and they moved to Casablanca.
However, in 1932, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry left the Aéropostale company and returned to live in France. That same year, he was hired as a test pilot for seaplanes, but he abandoned this work when, on December 21, 1933, he suffered yet another near-fatal accident.
In 1934, he became famous when his book Night flight was adapted for the cinema US U.S. The following year, the novelist bought his first plane and took a promotional tour on behalf of Air France, in addition to traveling by train to the Soviet Union, with the aim of writing articles requested by the newspaper Paris-Soir.
To win an award, in 1935, he tried to break the record for flying between Paris and Saigon. Yet, your plane crashed in the Libyan desert. He was rescued by Bedouins three days later but lost his aircraft. With the insurance money, he bought another plane. In the years 1936 and 1937, he traveled to the Spain in order to write articles about the civil war for newspapers L’Intransigeant and Paris-Soir.
![Sculpture by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the Jardin Royal in Toulouse.[1]](/f/346d8edfa8a22a8b8029b366b365ad62.jpg)
In 1938, he suffered another serious air accident, in the Guatemala, when crossing the American continent. He spent several weeks in the hospital. The following year, he was named Officer of the Legion of Honor, and your book land of men received the French Academy award.
With the beginning of Second World War, becameif fighter pilot, but was discharged in the mid-1940s. Then he moved to the United States, where he received the American Booksellers Association award in 1941 for his best seller, that is, the book land of men. Two years later, requested reintegration to war forces. Thus, his plane disappeared on July 31, 1944, during a mission.
See too: books that became movies
Characteristics of the work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The books of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry report the adventures of airplane pilots. His characters, therefore, are heroes, who run peril and sacrifice themselves in the line of duty. Therefore, they are exalted by the storyteller, who sees, in their heroic attitudes, a model of detachment and a spirit of solidarity.
You biographical traits are also present in his works, as in land of men, in which the adventures lived by the author himself are narrated. Furthermore, the stories of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry are characterized by the lyrical language, for simplicity and for reflections on human existence.
Works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
![Cover of the book “The Little Prince”, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, published by the publisher L&PM.[2]](/f/9c3b2b1331824a820e682796d2f187ac.jpg)
the aviator (1926)
South post (1929)
Night flight (1931)
land of men (1939)
war pilot (1942)
The little Prince (1943)
letter to a hostage (1944)
Citadel (1948)
The little Prince
The little Prince is the author's most famous book. It tells the story of an aviator whose plane crashed in the Saara's desert. He wakes up in the morning, after his first night in the desert, and he hears a "strange voice". It is the voice of a child asking the man to draw a sheep for her.
The aviator, and narrator of the story, then draws a box, which the boy likes, because the sheep is inside it. The pilot starts calling this boy "little prince". The child asks several questions but does not answer the man's questions. He later discovers that the little prince comes from asteroid B 612.
The boy wants to know if it's true that sheep eat bushes and baobabs, as the B 612 is full of baobabs, which are harmful to their planet. However, sheep also eat thorny flowers, and on the little prince's planet there is a vain rose that he tended to.
One day the little prince decided to leave his planet and visit other worlds. So he met a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, an old man who wrote huge books, and finally he came to Earth, where he met a snake, a three-petaled flower, some roses, a fox, a key-keeper and a vendor.
After developing a beautiful friendship with the aviator, the boy decides to leave. So, after six years, the narrator decides to tell this story. At the end of it, he tells us:
“And if you happen to pass by there [African desert], I beg you not to be in a hurry and to wait a little bit under the star! If then a boy comes to meet you, if he laughs, if he has golden hair, if he doesn't answer when questioned, you will guess who he is. So please don't make me so sad; write me quickly that he's back..."
See too: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas - book that inaugurated Brazilian realism
Phrases by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Next, we are going to read some sentences by the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, taken from his books land of men, Citadel, The little Prince, Night flight and war pilot:
"Loving is not looking at each other, it's looking together in the same direction."
"If you differ from me, my brother, far from harming me, you enrich me."
"Only seen clearly with the heart."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye."
"We are also rich in our miseries."
"War is a disease."
"Tomorrow's truth feeds on yesterday's error."
"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
Image credits
[1] SaraGlop / Shutterstock
[2] LP&M Editors
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
