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Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon, a city that The Grandma knows very well from when she studied and worked there.
Lugdunum, capital of Gaul and city of light is a beautiful dynamic, enterprising, cultured city that is proud of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and that pays tribute to him in every corner of Vieux Lyon.
These past months, The Grandma has visited Lyon many times for sports. When she lived there some years ago, she became a season ticket holder for its football team and was able to enjoy good French league matches, good derbies (against Saint-Etiénne) and also a women's team that was hegemonic in Europe at the time.
Everything in life is in cycles and it seems that now they can once again have their women's team touching those stars that Saint-Exupéry described in The Little Prince and that remind us day after day that what is truly important is invisible to the eye.
Saint Eixupéry disappeared during a reconnaissance mission over Corsica on 31 July 1944 and although his disappearance has never been considered a closed case, we all know that dying does not necessarily mean disappearing because as long as his work is read, his legacy will live on.
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900-disappeared 31 July 1944) was a French writer, poet, journalist, and pioneering aviator whose life and work were inseparably linked. Best known as the author of The Little Prince, he is regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential literary figures, combining philosophical reflection with firsthand experiences of aviation and war.
Born into an aristocratic family in Lyon, Saint-Exupéry lost his father at an early age and was raised by his mother alongside his siblings. The death of his younger brother François during childhood had a profound emotional impact on him and influenced many of the themes that would later appear in his writing. After unsuccessfully applying to the French Naval Academy, he completed his military service and trained as a pilot, discovering the vocation that would shape the rest of his life.
In the 1920s he joined the pioneering airmail service Aéropostale, flying dangerous postal routes across France, North Africa, and later South America. At a time when aviation was still in its infancy, these flights demanded exceptional courage and endurance. The isolation of the cockpit, the responsibility of transporting the mail, and the bonds formed between pilots became recurring themes in his literary work.
Saint-Exupéry began publishing fiction while pursuing his aviation career. His first notable work was The Aviator (1926), followed by Southern Mail (1929). International recognition came with Night Flight (1931), a novel that portrayed the risks and moral responsibilities of early commercial aviation. Rather than focusing solely on adventure, his writing explored duty, friendship, sacrifice, and the search for meaning in human existence.
In 1931, he married Salvadoran writer and artist Consuelo Suncín. Their marriage was passionate, complicated, and often turbulent, yet it remained one of the defining relationships of his life. Many scholars believe that Consuelo inspired the Rose in The Little Prince, symbolizing both love and the challenges of close human relationships.
Throughout the 1930s Saint-Exupéry worked as both an aviator and a journalist. He travelled widely, reporting from the Soviet Union and covering the Spanish Civil War. These experiences deepened his concerns about political extremism, violence, and the loss of human dignity, subjects that increasingly appeared in his essays and fiction.
One of the defining moments of his life occurred in December 1935, when he attempted to break the speed record on the Paris-Saigon route. His aircraft crashed in the Libyan Desert, leaving him and his mechanic stranded with almost no water. After several days of wandering through the Sahara while suffering from dehydration and hallucinations, they were rescued by a Bedouin. The experience profoundly influenced his later writing and inspired several of the desert scenes that would become central to The Little Prince.
In 1938, he survived another serious aircraft accident in Guatemala during an attempt to establish a long-distance flight record. Although he recovered, he suffered permanent injuries that affected his health for the remainder of his life.
His 1939 memoir Wind, Sand and Stars became one of his greatest literary successes, earning prestigious awards in both France and the United States. Blending autobiography, philosophy, and reflections on aviation, the book argues that hardship and shared responsibility reveal humanity at its best.
When the Second World War began, Saint-Exupéry returned to military service as a reconnaissance pilot in the French Air Force. Flying dangerous intelligence missions during the Battle of France, he witnessed the rapid collapse of his country. These experiences formed the basis of Flight to Arras (1942), an account that combines personal testimony with reflections on courage, duty, and the tragedy of war.
After France's defeat, he spent much of the war in the United States. Although he attempted to remain above political divisions among the French resistance movements, he consistently argued for national unity and reconciliation. During his American exile he wrote The Little Prince, published in 1943 in both French and English. Although presented as a children's story, the novella explores universal themes including friendship, love, loneliness, imagination, responsibility, and the importance of seeing beyond appearances. Saint-Exupéry also created the book's distinctive watercolor illustrations, which have become inseparable from the story itself.
Despite being older than the permitted age for combat pilots and suffering from numerous physical injuries, Saint-Exupéry insisted on returning to operational flying. In 1943 he joined the Free French Air Force, flying Lockheed P-38 Lightning reconnaissance aircraft on high-risk photographic missions over occupied Europe.
On 31 July 1944, he departed from Corsica on a reconnaissance mission over southern France in preparation for the Allied invasion of Provence. He never returned, and his disappearance became one of the enduring mysteries of the Second World War. For decades numerous theories surrounded his fate.
In 1998, a fisherman recovered Saint-Exupéry's identification bracelet near Marseille, and in 2000 divers located wreckage identified as his aircraft on the Mediterranean seabed. Although these discoveries confirmed the approximate location of the crash, the precise circumstances of his death remain uncertain.
Saint-Exupéry's principal works include The Aviator, Southern Mail, Night Flight, Wind, Sand and Stars, Flight to Arras, Letter to a Hostage, The Little Prince, and the posthumously published philosophical work Citadel, compiled from his unfinished manuscripts.
Today, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is remembered not only as one of the great pioneers of early aviation but also as a writer whose works transcend generations and cultures. The Little Prince has become one of the most translated and widely read books in history, while his broader body of work continues to inspire readers with its reflections on humanity, responsibility, courage, and the enduring value of compassion.
Download Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Download The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
the zest of creating things new.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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