Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944

Outline• Biography• Youth and aviation• Writing career• The Little Prince• Saint-Exupery in the WWII• Disappearance• Honours• Quotes

Biography

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born on 29 June 1900 and died on 31 July 1944.

He was a famous french aristocrat, writer, poet and pioneering aviator.

He became a laureate of several of France’s highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award.

Youth and aviationHe was born in Lyon to an aristocratic family, was the third of five children.

Their father, an executive of the insurance brokerage, died unexpectedly and it had a great affect on the entire family, transforming their status to “impoverished aristocrats”.

At the age of 15 his brother Françoistragically died of rheumatic fever. This tragedy almost broke his life.

• In his early years he failed twice his final exams at a preparatory Naval Academy.

• Saint-Exupéry entered the École des Beaux-Arts as an auditor to study architecture for 15 months without graduating it.

• In 1921, Saint-Exupéry began his military service with the 2e Régiment de chasseurs à cheval(2nd Regiment of light cavalry) and was sent to Neuhof, near Strasbourg.

• By 1926, Saint-Exupéry became one of the pioneers of international postal flight

• He worked for Aeropostale between Toulouse and Dakar

• In 1929, Saint-Exupéry was transferred to Argentina, where he was appointed director of theAeroposta Argentina airline.

Writing career

• Saint-Exupéry's first novella, L'Aviateur (The Aviator), was published in a short-lived literary magazine le Navire d'argent (The Silver Ship)

• The 1931 publication of Vol de nuit (Night Flight) established Saint-Exupéry as a rising star in the literary world. He won the prix Femina

• Saint-Exupéry continued to write until the spring of 1943, when he left the United States with American troops bound for North Africa in World War II.

The Little Prince

• first published in 1943

• is both the most-read and most-translated book in the French language

• was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Translated into more than 250 languages and dialects

Saint-Exupery in the WWII

• In April 1943 Saint-Exupéry departed with an American military convoy for Algiers, to fly with the Free French Air Force and fight with the Allies in a Mediterranean-based squadron

• Saint-Exupéry had been suffering pain and immobility due to his many previous crash injuries, to the extent that he could not dress himself in his own flight suit or even turn his head leftwards to check for enemy aircraft

• Saint-Exupéry was assigned with a number of other pilots to F-5 Lightnings, which an officer described as "war-weary, non-airworthy craft"

Disappearance

• Saint-Exupéry's last assigned reconnaissance mission was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France ("Operation Dragoon").

• But he did not return, dramatically vanishing without a trace. Word of his disappearance shortly spread across the literary world and then into international headlines.

Honours• Saint-Exupéry is commemorated with an

inscription in the Panthéon in Paris, France's repository of historical greats.

• From 1993 until the introduction of the euro, Saint-Exupéry's portrait and several of his drawings fromThe Little Prince appeared on France's 50-franc banknote

Quotes• Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in

looking outward together in the same direction.

• It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

• Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.

• The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.