Saint Exupery. Antoine Saint Exupery: biography

Biography, life story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupery - French writer and pilot.

Childhood

Antoine was born on June 29, 1900 in Lyon (France). He was the third of five children of Jean de Saint-Exupéry and Marie de Fontcolombes. Antoine's father was a representative of an old noble family. Unfortunately, when little Antoine was only four years old, Jean died. He did not leave any money to his family and his wife and children had to face many troubles.

Despite the financial need, the family lived very amicably. Antoine grew up as a playful and active boy, loved animals, and loved to tinker with various models of engines. Antoine was very friendly with his brother Francois, however, he also had warm feelings for his sisters. Alas, when Antoine was seventeen years old, Francois died of a fever.

In 1912, Antoine first felt the full power and boundlessness of the sky. The famous pilot Gabriel Wroblewski took the boy to fly a plane at the airfield in Amberje. This event greatly impressed Antoine; after the flight, he was in complete delight for a long time.

Education

At the age of eight, Antoine was accepted to study at the School of the Christian Brothers of St. Bartholomew in his hometown. A little later he transferred to the Jesuit College of Sainte-Croix (Mans, France). In 1914, Antoine entered the Friborg Marist College (Friborg, Switzerland). After college, the boy planned to enter the Paris Naval Lyceum Saint-Louis, but he did not pass the competition. As a result, in 1919, Antoine de Saint-Exupery became a volunteer lecturer on architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Military service

1921 was a turning point in Antoine's life. That year he was drafted into the French army. The young man enlisted in the second fighter aviation regiment in Strasbourg. Initially, Saint-Exupéry was assigned to the work team at repair shops. But the passion for the sky, which appeared in childhood, haunted Antoine. He decided to take the civil pilot exam. Having proven to management that he was capable of flying an aircraft, Antoine moved to Morocco (North Africa). There Antoine received his military pilot's license. After Morocco, the young man went to Istres (France).

CONTINUED BELOW

Pilot and writer

After his life as a military pilot was left far behind, Antoine moved to Paris. At first he tried to make a living by writing, but he didn’t do it very well. Due to an acute shortage of money, Antoine had to grab all the jobs that came his way. At one time he sold cars, sold books... Throughout this joyless period of his life, Antoine dreamed of heaven. In the spring of 1926, he was lucky - he managed to become a pilot for the Aeropostal company, which was engaged in delivering mail to the northern coast of Africa. Having demonstrated his abilities perfectly, in the fall Antoine became the head of the intermediate station in the city of Villa Bens (Morocco). It was there, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote his first work, entitled “Southern Postal”.

In the spring of 1929, Antoine returned to France and enrolled in naval aviation courses in Brest (west of the country). While he was studying, his debut novel was published. After the courses, Antoine moved to South America, where he became the technical director of the local branch of the Aeropostal company.

In 1930, Antoine de Saint-Exupery became a Knight of the Legion of Honor for his impressive contribution to the development of civil aviation. That same year he left America and returned to his native country.

In 1931, the company where Antoine worked went bankrupt. In the same year, Saint-Exupery published his next masterpiece called “Night Flight”.

In February 1932, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry began working for the Latecoera airline. A little later he became a test pilot. True, this work almost ended in tragedy - while testing a new seaplane, Antoine almost died.

Investigative journalism

In the spring of 1935, Antoine became a correspondent for the Paris-Soir newspaper. He was sent on a business trip to the USSR. After the trip, Antoine wrote and published an essay “Crime and Punishment in the Face of Soviet Justice.” This work became the first Western publication in which the author made an attempt to comprehend and understand the strict regime.

At the end of the summer of 1936, Antoine visited Spain as a representative of the newspaper Entransigen. Having been in the thick of things (at that time there was a terrible civil war in the country), Antoine wrote several high-profile reports.

Personal life

Antoine first fell in love during his service in Strasbourg. Her name was Louise. She was the daughter of a young and wealthy widow, Madame de Vilmorin. Louise was a very weak and sickly girl, but this is what attracted Antoine to her. Seeing the graceful girl lying on her bed in a light peignoir, the huge Antoine (his height was almost two meters) felt small and defenseless in front of this unearthly beauty. He immediately wrote to his birth mother that he had found his life partner. Soon he proposed to Louise. However, Madame de Vilmorin was categorically against her daughter's marriage to a poor aristocrat. Fate decreed that a few weeks after the marriage proposal, Antoine ended up in the hospital (he had an accident on a new plane). He lay there for several months. During this time, Louise acquired new fans and forgot about her would-be groom. When he left, the girl did not want to see him and demanded that he forget about her.

In 1930, in Benos Aires, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry met a petite and very sweet girl named Consuelo Gomez Carrilo. The charming Consuelo immediately captured Antoine's imagination. She was so fickle, so alive, so... There was a lot of her and she was everywhere, despite her modest proportions. Before meeting Antoine, Consuelo had been married twice (her second husband committed suicide). The young people began dating, and a little later moved to Paris. There they got married. Consuelo simply adored France and, as it turned out a little later, she loved to lie. She lied about everything without even thinking about what she was doing. She made up ridiculous stories and embellished reality. As a result, her passion for lies grew to such an extent that by the end of her days she herself could no longer understand what was true and what was fiction.

Despite this, Antoine adored his wife. He carefully protected her, pampered her, tried to give her all his love. However, she still remained unhappy. However, it was difficult to make a woman happy who could not figure out what was real and what was not, a woman who was slowly going crazy every year. Consuelo was always dissatisfied with her husband. As a result, she began to live her own life - she went to bars, did not spend the night at home... Antoine forgave everything to his eccentric wife, but he felt that family life had exhausted him. Over time, he had other women. True, he had no intention of getting a divorce. He had mixed feelings towards Consuelo - he could no longer live with her under the same roof, but he also could not imagine life without her.

War

On September 3, 1939, France declared war on Germany. The very next day, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry arrived at the military airfield. On November 3 of the same year, he ended up in a long-range reconnaissance aviation unit in Orconte (Champagne, France). Friends tried to dissuade Antoine from becoming a military pilot, assuring him that he would be much more useful to society as a writer. However, Antoine did not listen to them. He said that he could not calmly watch his homeland suffer.

During the war, Saint-Exupéry flew several combat missions as a photographic reconnaissance aircraft. In 1941, when France was defeated, he briefly moved to a safe part of the country to live with his sister, and a little later moved to New York (USA). It was on American soil that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry created “The Little Prince,” his most famous work.

In 1943, Antoine returned to the military. He was assigned to pilot a new high-speed aircraft.

Death

On July 31, 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry went on a reconnaissance flight to the island of Corsica (Mediterranean Sea). Antoine never returned from that flight. This day is considered the official day of death of the talented writer and brave pilot. At the time of his death he was only forty-four years old.

Interesting Facts

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was left-handed.

The image of the rose in the novel “The Little Prince” is based on his beloved wife Consuelo.

Throughout his life, Antoine was involved in fifteen plane crashes.

Saint-Exupery was a master of card tricks.

Antoine created several inventions in the field of aviation and even received patents for them.

Awards and prizes

In 1930, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry received the Femina Prize for his novel Night Flight.

In 1939 he was awarded two awards: the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy for "Planet of Men" and the US National Book Award for "Wind, Sand and Stars". In the same year he was awarded the Military Cross of the French Republic.

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry (French: Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry; June 29, 1900, Lyon,
France - July 31, 1944) is a French writer, poet and professional pilot.

Pilot and writer

The turning point in his fate was 1921 - then he was drafted into the French army. Having interrupted the deferment he received upon entering a higher educational institution, Antoine enrolled in the 2nd Fighter Aviation Regiment in Strasbourg. At first he is assigned to a work team at repair shops, but soon he manages to pass the exam to become a civilian pilot. He is transferred to Morocco, where he is already a military pilot, and then sent to Istres for improvement. In 1922, Antoine completed the course for reserve officers in Aurora and became a junior lieutenant. In October he was assigned to the 34th Aviation Regiment at Bourges near Paris. In January 1923, he suffered his first plane crash and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He will be discharged in March. Exupery moved to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing. However, at first he was not successful in this field and was forced to take on any job: he sold cars, he was a salesman in a bookstore.

Saint-Exupery made several combat missions in a Block 174 aircraft, performing aerial photographic reconnaissance missions, and was nominated for the Military Cross award. In June 1941, after the defeat of France, he moved to his sister in the unoccupied part of the country, and later went to the United States. He lived in New York, where, among other things, he wrote his most famous book, “The Little Prince” (1942, published 1943). In 1943, he joined the Air Force of “Fighting France” and with great difficulty achieved his enrollment in a combat unit.
He had to master piloting the new high-speed Lightning P-38 aircraft.

On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupery set off from Borgo airfield on the island of Corsica on a reconnaissance flight and did not return.

Circumstances of death

For a long time nothing was known about his death. And only in 1998, in the sea near Marseille, a fisherman discovered a bracelet.
Saint-Exupéry's bracelet, found by a fisherman near Marseille.

There were several inscriptions on it: “Antoine”, “Consuelo” (that was the name of the pilot’s wife) and “c/o Reynal & Hitchcock, 386 4th Ave. NYC USA." This was the address of the publishing house where Saint-Exupery's books were published. In May 2000, diver Luc Vanrel said that at a depth of 70 meters he discovered the wreckage of an airplane that may have belonged to Saint-Exupéry. The remains of the plane were scattered over a strip one kilometer long and 400 meters wide. Almost immediately, the French government banned any searches in the area.
Permission was received only in the fall of 2003. Experts recovered fragments of the plane. One of them turned out to be part of the pilot's cabin; the serial number of the aircraft was preserved: 2734-L. Using American military archives, scientists compared all the numbers of aircraft that disappeared during this period. Thus, it turned out that the onboard serial number 2734-L corresponds to the aircraft, which in the US Air Force was listed under the number 42-68223, that is, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft, a modification of the F-4 (long-range photo reconnaissance aircraft), which was flown by Exupery.

Luftwaffe logs contain no records of aircraft shot down in this area on July 31, 1944, and the wreckage itself does not show obvious signs of shelling. This gave rise to many versions of the crash, including versions of a technical malfunction and suicide of the pilot.

According to press publications from March 2008, the German Luftwaffe veteran 88-year-old Horst Rippert, a pilot of the Jagdgruppe 200 squadron, stated that it was he who shot down the plane of Antoine de Saint-Exupery in his Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter. According to his statements, he did not know who was at the controls of the enemy aircraft:
“I didn’t see the pilot, only later did I find out that it was Saint-Exupéry”

The fact that Saint-Exupery was the pilot of the downed plane became known to the Germans on the same days from radio interceptions of negotiations at French airfields carried out by German troops. The absence of corresponding entries in the Luftwaffe logs is due to the fact that, apart from Horst Rippert, there were no other witnesses to the air battle, and this plane was not officially counted as shot down.

They say that brilliant writers and poets have the gift of clairvoyance and are able to look into the future. An editor once asked Exupery what kind of death he would prefer. Antoine compiled a list of options, one of which was death in the water...

When Exupery's plane took off at about 8 a.m. on July 31, 1944, a Me-109 fighter piloted by pilot Horst Rippert took off from the Luftwaffe base.
Above the sea, 200 m below him, the German pilot saw a French fighter. The pilot did not seem to notice the enemy and did not make any maneuvers to get away from the Messerschmitt or to engage in combat. Horst hit the French plane on the first pass. This was the last (28th) aircraft shot down by Rippert in that war.

Thanks to Saint-Exupery's books, Horst fell in love with the sky and became a pilot. The nightmarish paradox of war - a grateful reader knocks down his beloved writer...

The mystery of the death of Saint-Exupery | Peekaboo
pikabu.ru›story/tayna_gibeli_sentyekzyuperi…

The purpose of this article is to establish the cause of death of ANTOINE DE SAINT - EXUPERY using his FULL NAME code.

Watch "Logicology - about the fate of man" in advance.

Let's look at the FULL NAME code tables. \If there is a shift in numbers and letters on your screen, adjust the image scale\.

30 41 50 81 97 103 120 130 131 145 164 184 185 199 204 210 228 234 248 267
E K Z Y P E R I A N T U A N D E S E N T
267 237 226 217 186 170 164 147 137 136 122 103 83 82 68 63 57 39 33 19

1 15 34 54 55 69 74 80 98 104 118 137 167 178 187 218 234 240 257 267
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
267 266 252 233 213 212 198 193 187 169 163 149 130 100 89 80 49 33 27 10

EXUPERY ANTOINE de SAINT = 267.

267 = 89-KILLED + 178-\89-KILLED + 89-KILLED\.

267 = 210-(gunshot) WOUND IN THE HEART + 57-FIRE(trill...).

210 = (gunshot) wound to the heart
__________
63 = DEATH

210 - 63 = 147 = (u) BEATEN IN THE HEART.

267 = GUNSHOT WOUND CE(heart).

228 = (fire) SHOT WOUND CE (heart)

57 = OGNES(trill...)

228 - 57 = 171 = (h) A SHOT IN THE HEART.

204 = HEART pierced by a bullet
________________________________
68 = (kill)T IN HEART(tse)

204 - 68 = 136 = KILLED BY A BULLET IN THE HEART.

80 = (n)LEFT WOUND(s)
______________________________
193 = KILLED BY A BULLET TO THE HEART

(a)E(rophotographer) + K(end) + Z(strelen) (burst)Y (from) P(slinger gun) + (deadly)E R(anen)I(e) +(z)A(arrow)N (from a machine gun)T(a) + U(world)AN(ie) + (damage)DE(nie) SE(rdtsa) + (instant)N(th) + (death)T(b)

267 = ,E, K, + Z,Yu,P, + ,E R,I, + ,A,N,T, +U,AN, + ,DE, SE, + ,N, + ,T,.

BIRTH DATE code: 06/29/1900. This = 29 + 06 + 19 = 54 = KILLED.

267 = 54-KILLED + 213-DEATH BY BULLETS.

DEATH DATE code: 07/31/1944. This = 31 + 07 + 19 + 44 = 101 = DEATH OF THE FLIGHT.

267 = 147-DEAD OF A PILOT + 120-END OF LIFE.

54 = KILLED = (BIRTH DATE code)
_____________________________________________________
233 = 101-(code DATE OF DEATH) + 132-DEPARTURE

233 - 54 = 179 = 132-DEPARTURE + 47-STOP (relen).

19 36 46 51 74 75 94 123 139 145 162 165 180 186 196 227 239 271
JULY 31
271 252 235 225 220 197 196 177 148 132 126 109 106 91 85 75 44 32

"Deep" decryption offers the following option, in which all columns match:

(sbi)T RI(tm) (ser)DCA + (death)TH + P(r)ERV(an)O (heart)E(b)I(enie) + (dying)Yu(shchiy) + (distress) LYA(n)

271 = ,T RI,DCA + ,TH +P,ERV,O,E,I + ,YU, + ,LA,.

Look at the column in the lower table of the FULL NAME code:

34 = DEATH(s)
________________________________
252 = (t)THE FIRST OF JULY

34 = DEATH(s)
____________________________________________
252 = 201-DEATH BY SHOT + 51-KILLED

252 - 34 = 218 = BULLET WOUND TO THE HEART(s).

Code for FULL YEARS OF LIFE: 76-FORTY + 100-FOUR = 176.

18 33 50 65 76 100 106 125 153 170 176
FORTY FOUR
176 158 143 126 111 100 76 70 51 23 6

176 = 106-DAMAGE + 70-HEARTS.

106 - 70 = 36 = PU(lei).

"Deep" decryption offers the following option, in which all columns match:

S(heart) O(established) (high)R(el)O(m) + K(rove)CH(nie) (o)T (v)Y(st)RE(la)

176 = C, O, + ,P,O, + K,CHE,T,Y,RE,.

267 = 176-FORTY-FOUR + 91-\51-KILLED + 40-CON(ETS)\.

Look at the column in the top table of the FULL NAME code:

103 = (shot) N FALL IN THE SE (heart)
______________________________________
170 = FORTY-FOUR(s)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is familiar to the whole world, mainly thanks to his philosophical work “The Little Prince”. But what kind of person was Exupery? The biography of this writer-pilot is very little known to many, despite the fact that his fate is full of interesting twists and turns. There was dramatic love, great friendship, and adventures, many of which were reflected in his books.

The de Saint-Exupéry family

The biography of the future writer begins in the French city of Lyon, where he was born on June 29, 1900. He was the third child of Comte de Saint-Exupéry and his wife. In just 4 years of marriage, the couple managed to acquire two daughters, Marie-Madeleine and Simone, and a son. Soon after Antoine his brother Francois was born, and two years later his younger sister Gabrielle de Saint-Exupery was born.

The biography of the future writer soon became darker. Immediately after the birth of his youngest daughter, Jean de Saint-Exupéry, whom George Sand herself dubbed a real French chevalier, died, leaving his wife alone with five children and without a livelihood.

Antoine Exupery: short biography. Childhood

After the death of their father and husband, the family settles with Aunt Marie in Lyon on Place Bellecour, but often the children visit their grandmother’s castle, where Queen Margot herself once visited.

Despite the poverty, the family is very friendly, and all the children get along well with each other. Of course, Antoine is attached to his sisters, but his true friendship is with his younger brother Francois. She adores her little son and his mother; she calls him the Sun King for his blond curls, upturned nose and easy-going character, which remained with Exupery throughout his life.

His biography is full of memories from his contemporaries and family that the boy grew up very cheerful and inquisitive, adored animals, and also loved to tinker with engines; perhaps this is where his love for aviation came from, which would develop much later.

Education

At the age of 8, Antoine entered a Christian school in Lyon, and then he and his brother continued their education at the Jesuit college in Montreux. The next stage is college in Switzerland, where the boy entered at the age of 14. Having received a bachelor's degree three years later, the young man plans to enter the Naval Lyceum in Paris, even attends preparatory courses, but does not pass the competition.

When Antoine turns 17, his brother François unexpectedly dies of articular rheumatism. The young man has a hard time experiencing the loss of someone close to him; he withdraws into himself.

After failing the exams for the military lyceum, Saint-Exupéry was forced to content himself with attending lectures on architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Getting to know the sky. Pilot

Exupery, whose biography is inextricably linked with the sky, dreamed of it since childhood. The first flight happened in his life when he was only 12 years old. The famous pilot Gabriel Wroblewski, despite the prohibitions of Antoine's mother, took him with him to the aviation field in Amberier. This short flight impressed the boy so much that it left a mark on his entire life.

However, the next chance to get closer to heaven presented itself only at the age of 21, when he joined the army and became a soldier of Exupery. From this moment on, his biography is full of flights. He first enlisted in an aviation regiment in Strasbourg, where he was assigned as a non-flying soldier in a repair shop. However, the sky beckoned him, and de Saint-Exupéry decided to take the civil pilot exam. In parallel with his service, he learns to fly, and at the end of the year he is transferred to Casablanca, where he takes an exam and receives the rank of officer.

During this period, he writes in his diaries that he experiences an irresistible desire to fly. Soon after gaining the opportunity to be a civilian pilot, he also received the right to fly a military aircraft, and then, having received the rank of junior lieutenant in the reserve, he was transferred to serve in an aviation regiment near Paris.

In 23, Exupery had his first accident, received severe injuries and temporarily gave up aviation. He works in a tile factory, selling trucks, until fate finally gives him the chance to realize the young man's second passion and talent - writing.

First attempts at writing

Antoine began writing quite early and was immediately successful - his first work, the fairy tale “The Odyssey of a Cylinder,” which he wrote in college in 1914, received first prize at a literary competition.

However, the door to serious literature will open for him much later. In 1925, Antoine, at the invitation of his cousin, comes to her salon, where he meets writers and publishers. They are literally fascinated by the young man and his works and offer to publish his stories. And already in April of the following year, his story “The Pilot” was published in the magazine “Silver Ship”.

Return to the sky

His first public success brings Exupery together with the wealthy businessman de Massima, who introduces him to the management of the Aeropostal airline. At first, Exupery works only as a mechanic, and then as a pilot of a mail plane. Moreover, he began to fly not just anywhere, but to Africa. He soon becomes the head of a small airport in the city of Cap Jubi in the heart of the Sahara Desert. To the surprised questions of his relatives about his fate and career as a writer, he always answered that in order to write, you first need to live. And his life here is amazing. In addition to his main work, Saint-Ex, as his friends decided to call him, uses all his diplomatic talents and either reconciles warring African tribes, pacifies the warlike Moors, rescues crashed pilots from their captivity, or even tames a wild fox.

This work and travel to new amazing places did not change the character of Exupery. His big, kind heart was ready to give everything to people. He spent money and time helping his friends and family, helping solve their problems and believed that hatred can only be overcome by love. Thanks to this work, Antoine makes his closest friends - Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaumet. Together they will make a significant contribution to the development of aviation not only in Europe, but also in Africa and even South America.

New points on the map

After Africa, Exupery returns briefly to France, where he begins to collaborate with book publishers and also improves his piloting skills. And soon a new assignment - a branch of the Aeropostal airline in South America, in Buenos Aires. Regular night flights over Casablanca are the main work that Antoine Exupery does.

A brief biography of the further period of his life is marked by the financial collapse of his native airline in 31, after which Exupery leaves it. Subsequently, he works on the postal lines connecting Dakar, Marseille and Algeria, tests new seaplanes and again gets into a serious accident. He miraculously survives, and divers have difficulty finding him. And his next accident happened soon in Saigon, in the Mekong Valley.

In 1933, Exupéry joined the Paris-Soir newspaper, where he became a correspondent. Among other countries, he visits the USSR, where he meets Bulgakov. Exupery's essays on the Soviet Union are a great success among readers. Soon he organizes a large air tour over the Mediterranean Sea to promote aviation.

Crash of plans

Being not only a pilot, but also an inventor, he borrowed money, bought a plane and participated in the development of a project for a high-speed flight from Paris to Saigon. He is in a hurry, because in order to receive money for the task, he must complete it by December 31st. On the night of December 30, Exupery, together with his mechanic, crashed in the Libyan desert, miraculously did not die and tried to survive for several more days without food and water. They are rescued by nomadic Bedouins.

The last serious accident occurs on a flight from New York to Tierra del Fuego. For several days after the accident, the pilot was in a coma, he had serious head injuries and other injuries, so he could no longer put on a parachute independently due to a shoulder injury. The short biography of de Saint-Exupéry is literally full of such accidents.

Literary success

While still working in the hot desert of Cap Jubi, Antoine writes his first major work at night, the book “Southern Postal”. In 29, returning to France, Exupery signed an agreement with the publishing house of Gaston Gallimard for the release of seven of his novels. The second work is “Night Flight” written in Argentina. In 1931, Exupery received the prestigious Femina Prize for this novel, and a year later, American filmmakers made a full-length film based on it.

The adventures and travels that befell Exupery were always reflected in his works. Thus, an accident in the Libyan desert and subsequent wanderings through it formed the basis of the novel “Land of Men.” The work was also influenced by the trip to the USSR made by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The biography is short, but full of experiences, and is included in the novel “Military Pilot”. It is inspired by the Second World War. Taking direct part in it and doing everything in his power, Exupery puts all his confusion, all his mental anguish into the book. In the USA it is a huge success, but in its native France it is banned by censorship. On the wave of popularity, an order for a children's fairy tale comes from America. In the course of his work, the writer creates his most famous work - “The Little Prince” with the author’s illustrations.

Personal life

Exupery, whose (short) biography would not have been revealed without personal relationships, truly loved only two women. Despite his fine spiritual organization and, undoubtedly, lyrical character, Antoine was not too lucky with girls. At the age of 18, he first met the one he fell in love with. Her name was Louise, and she was the sister of his comrade. Louise came from a noble, wealthy family and had a very quarrelsome and capricious character. Antoine, having fallen madly in love with her, proposed, but did not receive a definite answer. Some time later, when the young man was in the hospital with his first injury, he learned of the final break in the engagement. It was a big blow for him. And Louise only considered him a loser; even the literary success that Antoine de Exupery received did not change her opinion.

The biography of the tall, stately, handsome and charming French pilot, however, could not do without the attention of women, but he himself, having once experienced disappointment, was in no hurry to start affairs. At the same time, he was also worried that he was wasting his youth and life. In letters to his mother, he complained that he could not meet a woman who could calm his anxiety.

However, Antoine Exupery soon met such a woman. His biography at that time continues in Buenos Aires, where the writer meets Consuelo Carrilo. It is not known exactly how they met, but it must be assumed that they were introduced by a mutual friend, writer Benjamin Crepier. Consuelo was the widow of the writer Gomez Carrilo and had a rather complex character. The short, dark, not very beautiful woman was nevertheless the center of attention. She carried herself proudly and arrogantly, like a queen, she was well educated, well-read and intelligent. She brought confusion into Exupery's life, pestering him with violent scandals and hysterics, but it seemed that this was all he lacked.

The difficult love of a writer

The memoirs of Ksenia Kuprina, the daughter of the Russian writer A. Kuprin, are interesting. She met Consuelo in Paris and was fascinated by her intelligence and grace. One day, an Argentinean woman called Ksenia in the middle of the night and begged her to come. She told a 19-year-old girl a story about how she met an amazing man whom she fell incredibly in love with. But they are not destined to be together, since he was shot by the revolutionaries right before her eyes. Shocked, Kuprina took Consuelo to her country house and consoled her friend for several days, literally pulling her out of the lake in which she, with obsessive persistence, wanted to drown herself.

Imagine Kuprina’s indignation when it turned out that the shot lover was Exupery, alive and unharmed. Consuelo was so angry with him and wanted to break up that she made up the idea that he was dead and made those around her believe it.

They got married just a few months after they met, but pretty soon their life together ceased to be joyful and happy. Consuelo literally went crazy, torturing her husband with her antics. She either started a fight and threw dishes in front of guests, or went to bars until the morning and told vile, lying stories about her husband. However, he endured everything with a smile and calmness. Perhaps only he knew what she really was like, and saw the other side of her intolerable character. Be that as it may, this love was as devoted and passionate as the first day they met.

World War II period

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose biography dates back to the war years, ended up in Nazi Germany at 37. He was unpleasantly surprised by what Nazism did to people. When England and France declare war on Germany, Exupery is assigned to serve on the ground for health reasons, but he connected all his connections and was assigned to an aviation reconnaissance group.

After living and working in the USA in 1944, Exupery returned to his homeland again, but was not allowed to engage in intelligence activities, as he was already in the reserves. And again we have to connect connections. Despite serious health problems, he is allowed to make 5 more flights to obtain images of the area. On July 31, a plane piloted by Antoine Saint-Exupéry took off on a mission. The writer’s biography ends at this moment, since the plane did not return at the appointed time. Only 60 years later, in 2004, the remains of the kindest writer on the planet were raised and identified from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

A descendant of an old French family, one of the pioneers of aviation, a talented writer, humanist thinker, inventor and hero, Exupery belongs to the category of people who do not fit into the usual framework. He managed not only to fulfill all his dreams, but also created a unique code of morality, implemented in his work and destiny. His literary heritage is not very large, but it concentrates the main thing that worried the author all his life - faith in the unlimited possibilities of man. He walked directly and consistently towards this maxim all his life. Even as a child, his two main hobbies appeared: literature and aviation. At the age of six, he began writing poetry, and at the Lyceum he received the nickname “lunatic” for his dreamy appearance and an irresistible need to look at the sky for a long time. Later, he deliberately refuses many career opportunities and chooses aviation forever. The profession of a pilot gives Exupery a happy opportunity to see the world in a way that most people are not given, and at the same time test himself in the most dangerous and difficult situations. “Before you write, you need to live,” says Exupery, and his books fully reflect this life experience.

His dates

• 22 June 1900: born in Lyon (the third of five children in the family).
• 1921: Enlists in the Fighter Aviation Regiment in Strasbourg. n 1926: publishes the short story “The Pilot”.
• 1927: starts working for a postal company; he is appointed commander of the airfield in Morocco, where he writes the novel “Southern Post Office”.
• 1930: awarded the Chevalier Order of the Legion of Honour. He writes “Night Flight” and meets Consuelo Sunsin.
• 1931: marries Consuelo.
• 1935: as a correspondent for the newspaper Paris Soir, he comes to the USSR. Sufferes an accident in the Libyan desert.
• 1936: January 1, Exupery and his mechanic are rescued by Bedouins. First notes for the philosophical utopia “Citadel”.
• 1939: The Land of Men is published. Receives the Grand Prize of the Novel from the French Academy.
• 1942: writes The Little Prince.
• 1943: Joins his squadron in Algiers.
• July 31, 1944: last flight. His plane was shot down near Corsica.

Keys to Understanding

Remember childhood

Not being a psychoanalyst, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry unmistakably understood the significance of childhood impressions for a person’s future life. The beginning of his own journey was extremely happy. He wrote: “Where am I from? I'm from my childhood. I came from childhood, like from a country.” Later, over time, from the height of his enormous life experience, he admitted: “The world of childhood memories, our language and our games will always seem to me infinitely more real than any other... I’m not very sure that I lived after the passing of childhood".

Cult of friendship

Having dedicated The Little Prince to Leon Werth, “when he was a little boy,” Exupery explains: “I have a good reason for this: this adult is my best friend.” The circle of his friends is vast and varied, and they all remembered Exupéry as a man, any communication with whom became an event and for whom loyalty to his comrades was not a duty, but an internal need. His life credo: “True friendship cannot be preached, it is learned through action.”

Life as an article of faith

He confessed in a letter to his mother: “I have just read the Bible a little... What simplicity and power of style! And how much poetry! And the commandments, which occupy a good twenty-five pages, are masterpieces of legislation and common sense. And everywhere moral laws are revealed in their inevitability and beauty: and this is magnificent!” Everyone around him is unanimous in their opinion of his moral impeccability, and yet it is difficult for him to talk about his inner life: “he is held back by some feeling of modesty.” But at the same time, he admits: “Inner life is the only thing that matters to me. Me, as I am, should be found in what I write.” Both through the figurative structure of his works, and directly, literally, Exupery affirms his creed: “I believe that the cult of the Universal inspires, brings together separate values, creates the only true order; This order is life itself.”

Celebration of Overcoming

In order to come to work for the postal airline, Exupery had to overcome the inertia of a serene childhood, wealthy youth, and class habits. And his whole life will be a chain of overcomings. In literature, he will abandon romantic beauties for the sake of the truth of life, and in life he will choose the most difficult routes. Even in mortal danger, he continued to observe the world around him and, overcoming fear and despair, asserted: “Life is a holiday.”

Books by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

• "South Postal and others." AST, 2003.
• "A little prince". Eksmo, 2006.
• "Citadel". AST, 2006.
• "The Little Prince", audiobook, mp3. 1C Publishing, Melodiya, 2006.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born on June 29, 1900, in Lyon, France. When Antoine was 4 years old, his father died of intracerebral hemorrhage.

He received his primary education at St. Christian Brothers School. Bartholomew. From 1908 to 1914 Studied at the Jesuit College of Sainte-Croix.

It first took to the air in 1912. The aircraft was flown by the outstanding pilot G. Wroblewski. In 1919, the future writer enrolled as a volunteer student at the National Higher School of Fine Arts, in the architectural department.

In the sky

After successfully passing the exam, he received his military pilot's license. In 1922 he received the rank of junior lieutenant. A year later, he was involved in the first plane crash in his life, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury.

After his commission, he moved to Paris and devoted himself to literary creativity. But he did not stop yearning for heaven. In 1926, Exupery received a position as a pilot at the Aeropostal company.

In the same year, having received the post of head of an intermediate station on the edge of the Sahara, he created the novel “Southern Post Office”.

Correspondent pilot

In 1931, Exupery wrote and published the novel “Night Flight,” which received the prestigious Femina literary prize.

In the spring of 1935, as a correspondent for the Lari Soir newspaper, Exupery visited the Soviet Union. The writer described his impressions in detail in five short stories. In fact, he was the first Western writer who tried to comprehend the essence of Stalinism in writing.

In 1938, he published the novel “Planet of People,” which many critics described as “an ode to humanism.” In 1939, this novel received a prestigious award - the Grand Prix of the French Academy. In the same year, the novel received the US National Award.

The Second World War

During World War II, Exupery flew on the Blok-174 plane. He flew several combat missions. He completed many aerial photographic reconnaissance tasks, for which he was eventually nominated for the Military Cross award.

When France was defeated by Nazi Germany, Exupery moved to the United States. There he wrote a fairy tale novel for children and adults, “The Little Prince.” The book was published in 1943.

In the same year, Exupery returned to the front and successfully mastered piloting the Lighting P-38, the latest high-speed aircraft.

On July 31, 1944, Exupery went on a reconnaissance flight. He never returned back. The circumstances of his death still remain unclear. The wreckage of the plane on which the writer is believed to have crashed is now in the Air and Space Museum in Le Bourget.

Other biography options

• There were many interesting facts in the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. During his entire career as a pilot, he suffered fifteen plane crashes. During a business trip to the Soviet Union, he flew on board the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky aircraft.
• The writer loved to show card tricks and was fluent in many techniques.
• Exupery made his contribution not only to literature. He is the author of several inventions in the aviation field. The writer has patents for these inventions.
• At the heart of the writer’s most striking novel, “Planet of People,” is a real fact from his life. Some time before its creation, Exupery was involved in another plane crash while flying from Paris to Saigon.
• Exupery is the prototype of the hero S. Lukyanenko. This character, a pilot and writer, appears in the novel “Sky Seekers”. The hero's name is Antoine of Lyons.
• The airport in Lyon is named after the writer. Also named after him is asteroid 2578, which was discovered by T. Smirnova in 1975. And in 2003, the asteroid’s moon was named after the Little Prince.
• Also, the famous name of an outstanding writer was given to a mountain peak in Patagonia.
• see all