ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY ❘ ICONS OF FRANCE
“THE AIRCRAFT HE AND HIS COLLEAGUES FLEW WERE PRONE TO CRASHES – SAINT- EXUPÉRY HAD SEVERAL”
Clockwise from top left: In Tarfaya, Morocco, where the author lived for two years, you will find the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Museum of air mail; the statue of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and the Little Prince in Lyon; Saint-Exupéry’s most famous book, Le Petit Prince; his identity bracelet, found in 1998 near Marseille; Saint- Exupéry in Montreal’s City Hall; the author was honoured on France’s 50 franc note
an intergalactic prince, as “nauseating whimsy” and “faux philosophy”, there’s no arguing with its popularity. It sold over 200 million copies worldwide, making it the most popular work of fi ction ever penned by a French writer.
THE LOST CHILD Psychologically, though, its author appears to be something of a paradox. As an adventurer, he took to the skies fearlessly and loved nothing more than to explore the world. Yet his writings reveal another side to his character.
In her introduction to the 2015 English translation of Le Petit Prince, bestselling author Kate Mosse says Saint-Exupéry wrote “to make sense of his sadness and alienation”. She also claims he “was talking as much to his young self – and the lost child in all of us – as well as to his young readers”. Above all, though, she believes the book is a magical fable which transcends cultural barriers and expresses timeless truths. There is also no doubting France’s love for its famous son. As well as numerous other literary awards, Saint-Exupéry was
bestowed with the Légion d’honneur for his heroism, and commemorated in the Panthéon in Paris. In his birthplace of Lyon, the airport was renamed after him. Saint-Exupéry returned to the war in April 1943, fl ying with the Free French Air Force. On the morning of July 31, 1944, he took off from Corsica in his P-38 Lightning on a reconnaissance mission, in preparation for the Allied landing in Provence on August 15. And that was the last anyone saw of him. Remarkably, in 1998 a fi sherman found an identity bracelet bearing his name in the sea near Marseille. Then, in 2000, some wreckage from the plane was discovered nearby. There were no bullet holes, leading to speculation that he had either committed suicide, or suffered a fatal crash, with his nine lives used up. In her biography of ‘Saint-Ex’, Stacy Schiff says he “did not so much live fast as die early, and our fascination with him has grown as a result, as it does with all things that end before their time”. For Little Prince fans across the planet, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s star will always shine brightly. FT
DID YOU KNOW…?
1 Saint-Exupéry created the charming illustrations for Le Petit Prince himself, giving very specifi c instructions for the layout.
2 Paris’s Le Petit Prince Store is the only offi cial Petit Prince boutique in the world, selling over 3,000 products.
3 The Japanese have built an exact replica of the Château de Saint-Maurice-de- Rémens in the town of Hakone as a tourist attraction. There are plans to turn the original in France into a museum celebrating the writer’s life and achievements.
4 Saint-Exupéry is the only 20th-century French writer to fi gure on a banknote (in this case, France’s 50 franc note).
5 Le Petit Prince features in Extrapolations, the new ‘climate change apocalyptic’ series on Apple TV, which stars Marion Cotillard and Meryl Streep.
Jun/Jul 2023 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 77
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