He found his way back to Paris, was assigned to the 34th Aviation regiment at Le Bourget airfield, and fell in love with Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin. Securing a transfer to the French Air Force, Saint-Exupéry finished his pilot’s training at an airfield outside of Casablanca, Morocco, in 1922. While posted near Strasbourg, he took his first flying lessons. After knocking around Paris and testing his widowed mother’s patience and bank account, Saint-Exupéry entered the French army. A period studying architecture at École des Beaux-Arts failed to produce a degree. After the war, he sat for the exam to gain entrance into France’s naval academy and failed both times, perhaps on purpose. The same philosophical meditations about love, exploration, and the purpose of life appear in a more grown-up form in his novels, albeit without sheep, foxes, snakes, and precocious princes.īorn in Lyon, France, in 1900 to an aristocratic Catholic family, Saint-Exupéry was too young to fight in the First World War, and spent those years at a private school in Switzerland. A son of France, Saint-Exupéry never managed to learn English, but his key works are available in translation. If you’ve only encountered Saint-Exupéry (san-tex-oo-pear-ee) by reading The Little Prince with a child or in French class, there’s more to explore. This year, a new movie version hits Netflix, featuring stop-motion animation and the voices of Jeff Bridges, Marion Cotillard, and Paul Rudd. It’s been adapted for stage, opera, radio, and anime. The story has been translated into 250 languages and continues to sell close to two million copies a year.

which hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.” “I have spent lots of time with grown-ups,” says the pilot.

Since its publication in 1943, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince has been charming little ones with its inventive story, whimsical watercolors, and snide comments about adults.

Antuan de sent exupery little prince