Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The theme on the map

6 events in this theme

1. 1926 – 1928Saint-Exupéry, the Airmail and Cape Juby

   Saint-Exupéry became a pilot on the mail route linking Toulouse and Dakar and took charge of Cape Juby, a tiny base on the Saharan coast, where he wrote his first novel, Southern Mail.

2. 1930Guillaumet’s Crash in the Andes

   The airmail pilot Guillaumet was forced down by a snowstorm in the winter Andes and survived by walking for five days over snow-covered mountains.

3. 1931Publication of Night Flight

   Night Flight, a novel of pilots carrying the mail by night in South America, was published and won the Prix Femina.

4. 1935 – 1936Saint-Exupéry’s Crash in the Libyan Desert

   Attempting a record flight from Paris to Saigon, Saint-Exupéry crash-landed in the desert west of Egypt and walked for more than three days without water before Bedouin rescued him.

5. 1943Publication of The Little Prince

   In exile in New York, Saint-Exupéry published The Little Prince with his own illustrations — translated into hundreds of languages, one of the most-read books in the world.

6. 1944Saint-Exupéry’s Last Flight

   Back as an Allied reconnaissance pilot, Saint-Exupéry took off from Corsica to photograph southern France and never returned. Half a century later his bracelet and the wreck of his plane were found off Marseille.

Key people

• 
  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry1900 – 1944

  French aviator and writer who flew the mail over the Sahara and South America and wrote Night Flight, Wind, Sand and Stars and The Little Prince; lost on a reconnaissance flight in 1944

• 
  Henri Guillaumet1902 – 1940

  French airmail pilot and friend of Saint-Exupéry who crash-landed in the Andes in 1930 and survived by walking for five days