He Fell From a Star

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This month marks the 70th anniversary for the publication of The Little Prince, by French author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. St-Exupery’s life, writing, and death have fascinated people for all these years: the story behind the story is just as interesting as the plots of his most well-loved works.

“St-Ex” was a little too old to be a war pilot (although this didn’t stop him) when the Nazi regime swept across Europe. Born in 1900, St-Exupery learned to fly with the generation of pilots who sought to fly longer distances, faster, across large sections of the globe. These pilots – including Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart – flew more with guts and intuition than with instrumentation. St-Exupery was a pioneer of international postal flight—-the original “Aeropostale” for all you modern mall shoppers. Through the late 1920s, St-Exupery innovated and developed these mail routes connecting Europe, Africa, and South America. While participating in the Paris-to-Saigon air race in December of 1935, he and his mechanic-navigator crashed in the Saraha Desert and miraculously survived.

In the beginning of World War II in Europe, St-Exupery joined the French Air Force, but exiled himself when France surrendered to German occupation in 1940. The author-aviator-aristocrat spent the next three years in the US., encouraging Americans to enter the war, and writing some of his most famous pieces – including The Little Prince.

The Little Prince is one of the best-selling books of all time, making the list of the few titles that have sold over 100 million copies (current stats put it at about 140 million copies sold). Although there are many book series that have sold between 50 and 100 million copies, there are very few single titles that populate this esteemed list. Part of the reason for these staggering numbers of sales is that The Little Prince has been translated into more than 250 languages and dialects. Furthermore, in many countries, The Little Prince has gone through several translations – there have been six English translations, fifteen translations in Japanese, and more than fifty translations into Chinese.

Strangely enough, The Little Prince was not well-received by many of St-Exupery’s contemporary admirers. He was known for his tales of life as a pilot, in such books as Wind, Sand and Stars, for which he won the U.S.’s National Book Award. Though The Little Prince is the story of a pilot who crashes in the Saraha Desert, it was marketed as a children’s book, with its fantastical plot of the little prince from a far-away asteroid who meets the downed pilot in the desert. The strange mix of parables, talking animals, and pessimistic commentary on adult behaviors and cultural mores, didn’t appeal to the audience that St-Exupery had built. Nevertheless, it was published posthumously to growing acclaim, and, obviously, continues to charm generations around the world.

Though superior officers, friends, and concerned colleagues tried to permanently ground St-Exupery several times, citing his age, his health problems from earlier crashes, and his tendency to focus more on musing above the earth rather than on flying, St-Exupery continued flying missions for the Free French Air Force from 1943 through 1944. Adding to mystery to his legend, he took off from the southern coast of France on a reconnaissance mission in July 1944, when he was to gather information about German troop movements in the Rhone Valley, prior to a planned Ally invasion of that area. St-Exupery and his “war-weary” plane disappeared in stormy weather over the Mediterranean not long into his flight. There were no further clues to the mysterious end of an author who has himself become an icon of France until 1998, when a fisherman found a silver ID bracelet engraved with the names of St-Exupery, his wife, and his French publishing house – known to have been on his flight suit. In 2000, a diver found parts of the same make and model as St-Exupery’s, spread on the Mediterranean floor near the location of the bracelet.

I can tell you “the story behind the story”, but the question remains, why is The Little Prince so beloved? For decades, authors and publishers have wished that they could repeat the formula, that they could somehow bottle the charm, the lessons, the inspiration, that comes from less than 100 pages of a “children’s story.” Ultimately, to solve this mystery of the life and impact of Antoine St-Exupery, you will have to read The Little Prince for yourself.