Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry (Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n
In secondary school and at university, he studied science, and later in life with his experience as a pilot, he held several patents for airplane improvements. France had a system of universal military service for men when one reached 21.\u00a0 Thus in 1921 Saint Ex was taken into the military and trained as a pilot \u2212 the importance of the military use of the air force having been shown in the 1914-1918 First World War.\u00a0 On finishing his military service and with no set career plans, he used his air force training to join the newly created postal air service between Europe and the French colonies of Africa and later to South America.<\/p>\n
These experiences of early flights over ocean, desert and mountain obstacles create the framework for Saint Ex\u2019s writings. The theme is the solitude of the individual facing nature and the solidarity among the men who are facing these common dangers.<\/p>\n
The Saint Exup\u00e9ry family had friends in the publishing world, and Antoine was encouraged to write on his experiences. In 1928, his first book Courrier Sud <\/em>is published on his experiences of flying mail to Africa and saving his colleagues who had crashed. In 1930, he is sent to South America to create the air postal service there.\u00a0 He drew from the experience to write Vol de nuit with a preface by Andr\u00e9 Gide, <\/em>then at the height of his literary influence.\u00a0 Saint Ex also brought back from South America a wife, Consuelo Suncin.\u00a0 It was in today\u2019s terminology a very \u201copen marriage\u201d. St Ex, good looking and famous, had many female adventures, but his wife had no fewer.<\/p>\n In the mid-1930s, the private postal service companies were \u201cnationalized\u201d. Saint Ex, in personality clashes, was pushed out of what had become Air France. His fame as a writer opened the door to writing for newspapers, especially that he already knew many of the publishers. In 1935, he spent a month in Moscow and was impressed by the solidarity of the First of May celebrations. However, Saint Ex had no political or economic views, and his Moscow reports are more on the solidarity of Russians among themselves.<\/p>\n In 1936, the civil war started in Spain, and Saint Ex was sent to report on the battles. Again, he had no particular views of the ideology of the Republicans and the Fascists, but he was struck by the solidarity among the soldiers on both sides. In 1937, he was sent to report on Hitler\u2019s Germany. He had no sympathy for the Nazi cause but was impressed by the \u201ctogetherness\u201d of the Nazi mass ceremonies.<\/p>\n As France started to be occupied by German troops, he left for North Africa and then quickly moved to New York City where his writings were well known in literary circles and where he had friends. While in New York, he published his philosophical tale \u00a0Le Petit Prince,\u00a0 <\/em>which became his most translated book.\u00a0 When the US troops liberated North Africa and the Free French government was established there, Saint Ex returned to North Africa to rejoin the French air force. Although at 43, he was \u201coverage\u201d to pilot the US war plane Lightning P38, his fame was such that he could not be refused. It is with a Lightning that he carried out a number of reconnaissance missions over Italy and France. On 31 July 1944 his plane was shot down by German fire and was lost in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n A book of his philosophical thoughts on which he had been working for a number of years Citadelle<\/em> was published in 1948 after his death. Saint Ex’s style was influenced by Frederic Nietzche\u2019s Thus Spoke Zarathustra <\/em>which he had read. However, the spirit is much closer to Khalil Gibran\u2019s The Prophet. <\/em>There is no indication that he had read\u00a0 Gibran in Saint Ex\u2019s period in New York. It is more likely that both writers shared a common outlook on life. Saint Ex\u2019s outlook was basically that of the Stoics: the common nature of all humans whatever the cultural differences, harmony with Nature, and calm in the face of danger.<\/p>\n _____________________________________<\/p>\n Saint Ex\u2019s style was influenced by Frederic Nietzche\u2019s Thus Spoke Zarathustra which he had read. However, the spirit is much closer to Khalil Gibran\u2019s The Prophet. His outlook was basically that of the Stoics: the common nature of all humans whatever the cultural differences, harmony with Nature, and calm in the face of danger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":184838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[1021,900,1496,642,308,1162],"class_list":["post-186655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biographies","tag-antoine-de-saint-exupery","tag-biography","tag-humanism","tag-literature","tag-philosophy","tag-the-little-prince"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Littleprince-240x300.jpg\")
<\/a>On the eve of the war in 1939, his best known book Terre des hommes <\/em>was published. In English, it became Wind, Sand, and Stars <\/em>and was widely read in the USA.\u00a0 Although Saint Ex was against war, believing that \u201call men can be brothers\u201d, once the war with Germany was declared, by a sense of duty, he joined the French army air force until the armistice was signed with Germany.\u00a0 From this war experience, he wrote Pilote de guerre, <\/em>translated into English as Flight to Arras, <\/em>the city where was posted.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Ren\u00e9-Wadlow-e1486137838243.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em>Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens and editor of Transnational Perspectives. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"