Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a French writer, poet, aviator and reporter, born in 1900 in Lyon and died in 1944, as he was reported missing while on mission.

He lost his father at the age of 4, he studied to become part of Naval School, but failed the entrance exam. Therefore, he did his military service in the French Air Force and became an airmail pilot. He began to write about his experience as a pilot at a young age. His first novel, "Courrier Sud" came out in 1929.

While he was the stop-off head at Tarfaya in Morocco, then flight director in Argentina and test pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry continued his career in literature by publishing Vol de nuit in 1931 and received the Fémina award. He also published Terre des hommes in 1939, and received the Académie Française award.

Apart from his aristocratic background, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry rubbed shoulders with the posh world of literature in Paris and met authors like André Gide, Gaston Gallimard, Jacques Rivière, Jean Prévost and Jean Paulhan.

While he was exiled to the United States during the war, he published Pilote de guerre in 1942 and Le Petit Prince in 1943, his most famous work, a philosophical and poetic tale telling the story of a pilot who broke down in the Sahara and met a little prince who pondered over the absurd world of adults.

He came back to France and joined the French Forces, Saint-Exupéry was notified missing while on mission on 31st July 1944 and declared "dead for France". Editions Gallimard published fragments of his unfinished book and named it Citadelle.