Antoine de Saint-Exupery short biography. Antoine Saint Exupery: biography

“Too early death is tantamount to robbery: in order to fulfill your life’s calling, you need to live long,” he wrote (1900 - 1944) in one of his later articles. The author of “The Little Prince” and “The Citadel” seemed to have a presentiment of his imminent death.

On July 31, 1944, he went on another combat mission and did not return. For a long time, Exupery was listed as missing. Only half a century after his disappearance were fragments of his plane and personal belongings found. How much more could he give to humanity if he had not died on that ill-fated July day...

We have selected 20 wonderful quotes from his books:

1. Biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

2. Major works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

3. “The Little Prince” - characteristics and analysis of the work.

4. “Planet of People” - characteristics and analysis of the work

1. Biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in the French city of Lyon, descended from an old family of Périgord nobles, and was the third of five children of Viscount Jean de Saint-Exupéry and his wife Marie de Fontcolombes. At the age of four he lost his father. His mother raised little Antoine.

In 1912, at the aviation field in Amberier, Saint-Exupéry took off for the first time in an airplane. Exupery entered the School of the Christian Brothers of St. Bartholomew in Lyon (1908), then with his brother Francois he studied at the Jesuit College of Sainte-Croix in Manse - until 1914, after which they continued their studies in Friborg (Switzerland) at the Marist College, preparing to enter the Ecole Naval (he took a preparatory course at the Naval Lyceum Saint-Louis in Paris), but did not pass the competition. In 1919, he enrolled as a volunteer student at the Academy of Fine Arts in the architecture department.

The turning point in his fate was 1921 - then he was drafted into the army in France. 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 receives a military pilot's license, and then is 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.

Only in 1926 did Exupery find his calling - he became a pilot for the Aeropostal company, which delivered mail to the northern coast of Africa. In the spring, he begins work transporting mail on the line Toulouse - Casablanca, then Casablanca - Dakar. On October 19, 1926, he was appointed head of the Cap Jubi intermediate station (city of Villa Bens), on the very edge of the Sahara. Here he writes his first work - “Southern Postal”.

In March 1929, Saint-Exupery returned to France, where he entered the highest aviation courses of the navy in Brest. Soon, Gallimard's publishing house published the novel "South Postal", and Exupery left for South America as the technical director of Aeropost - Argentina, a branch of the Aeropostal company. In 1930, Saint-Exupéry was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor for his contribution to the development of civil aviation. In June, he personally participated in the search for his friend the pilot Guillaume, who suffered an accident while flying over the Andes. In the same year, Saint-Exupéry wrote “Night Flight” and met his future wife Consuelo from El Salvador.

In 1930, Saint-Exupéry returned to France and received a three-month vacation. In April, he married Consuelo Sunsin, but the couple, as a rule, lived separately. On March 13, 1931, the Aeropostal company was declared bankrupt. Saint-Exupéry returned to work as a pilot for the France-South America postal line and served the Casablanca-Port-Etienne-Dakar section. In October 1931, Night Flight was published, and the writer was awarded the Femina literary prize. He takes leave again and moves to Paris.

In February 1932, Exupery began working again for the Latecoera airline and flew as a co-pilot on a seaplane serving the Marseille-Algeria line. Didier Dora, a former Aeropostal pilot, soon got him a job as a test pilot, and Saint-Exupéry almost died while testing a new seaplane in the Bay of Saint-Raphael. The seaplane capsized, and he barely managed to get out of the cabin of the sinking car.

In 1934, Exupery went to work for the Air France airline (formerly Aeropostal), as a representative of the company, traveling to Africa, Indochina and other countries.

In April 1935, as a correspondent for the Paris-Soir newspaper, Saint-Exupéry visited the USSR and described this visit in five essays. The essay “Crime and Punishment in the Face of Soviet Justice” became one of the first works of Western writers in which an attempt was made to comprehend Stalinism. On May 3, 1935, he met with M. A. Bulgakov, which was recorded in E. S. Bulgakov’s diary. Soon Saint-Exupéry became the owner of his own Simun aircraft and on December 29, 1935, he attempted to set a record for the flight Paris - Saigon, but crashes in the Libyan Desert, again narrowly escaping death. On January 1, he and the mechanic Prevost, dying of thirst, were rescued by Bedouins.

In August 1936, according to an agreement with the newspaper Entransijan, he went to Spain, where he Civil War, and publishes a number of reports in the newspaper.

In January 1938, Exupery traveled aboard the Ile de France to New York. Here he proceeds to work on the book “Planet of People”. On February 15, he begins the flight from New York to Tierra del Fuego, but suffers a serious accident in Guatemala, after which he recovers for a long time, first in New York and then in France.

On September 4, 1939, the day after France declared war on Germany, Saint-Exupéry was mobilized at the Toulouse-Montaudran military airfield and on November 3 transferred to the 2/33 long-range reconnaissance air unit, which is based in Orconte (Champagne province). This was his response to his friends’ persuasion to abandon the risky career of a military pilot. Many tried to convince Saint-Exupéry that he would bring much more benefit to the country as a writer and journalist, that thousands of pilots could be trained and that he should not risk his life. But Saint-Exupery achieved appointment to a combat unit.

Saint-Exupéry 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. Lived in New York, where, among other things, he wrote his most famous book"The Little Prince" (1942, published 1943).

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

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry combined in his life and work the flight of a professional pilot with the flight of fantasy of a writer, reflecting in his books an artistic narrative about the most ordinary romantics of the sky. A humanist and philosopher, he argued that “flying and writing are the same thing”.

Saint-Exupery was a talented and versatile person. The scion of an impoverished count's family, Antoine Exupery was born at the very beginning of the last century - June 29, 1900 in Lyon, France. From 8 to 14 years old he studied at a Jesuit college, and continued his education at a Catholic boarding school in Switzerland, where he received a diploma from the architecture department of the Academy of Fine Sciences.

At the age of 21, Saint-Exupéry was drafted into the army, sent to Strasbourg, to the location of a fighter aviation regiment. There his flying career began: at first Antoine worked as a mechanic in a repair shop, and later passed the exam to become a civilian pilot. Work as a pilot began in October 1922 in an air regiment near Paris. But a couple of months later, Exupery had his first plane crash, literally interrupting his flight for several years. During this period, Exupery's career as a writer began.

Since 1925, Saint-Exupéry's flying activities have continued. He flies a mail plane in North Africa, and after 2 years becomes the head of the airport. At this time, the first story “The Pilot” was published. In 1930 for active work associated with aeronautics, receives the highest award in France - the Order of the Legion of Honor. The following year, his story “Night Flight” was awarded the Femina Prize.

In the period 1935 - 39 the writer actively works in journalism, where he describes the events of the civil military confrontation in Spain, and after visiting Soviet Union- Stalin's policy of the USSR. In 1939, Exupery was awarded the Literature Prize from the Academy of France for the book “Planet of People”, received the US Book Award for the collection “Wind, Sand and Stars”, and was awarded the Military Cross of the French Republic.

The Second World War is a new and main stage in the life of Exupery. Emigrates from occupied France to the United States and goes to the front as a military pilot. In 1943 he served in North Africa, where he created the philosophical parable “The Little Prince” - the writer’s creative apogee. Having set off on a reconnaissance flight on the last day of July 1944, Exupery’s plane crashed and disappeared without a trace. The writer’s last, unfinished work was the collection “Citadel”. Experts compiled it from many passages created by Exupery.

The work of A. Exupery is biographical; all of his works are connected to varying degrees with pilots, airplanes, and the sky. But main topic any narrative – philosophy, problems of man, personality, life and death. Exupery tried to comprehend, understand and convey to readers the vision of the problem of “man on the path of life.”

Many people call The Little Prince" fairy tale. Indeed, the basic human laws are presented in an allegorical form: “We are responsible for those we have tamed” (i.e., compassion, support, sympathy, help), people are “masters of themselves” (i.e., a person must understand, what should he do, what result will such an action bring). A person's thoughts find expression in his own actions.

And since there are no identical people, their thoughts and actions differ; are different life values. The King from The Little Prince has the ability to rule the whole world, but this world is comparable to a small asteroid where the king lives. A “business man” is always counting the stars and making worthless deals, but for a drunkard, the meaning of life is drinking. This picture is well known to millions of readers. But Exupery wants to show the audience not the personal values ​​of everyone, but the main values ​​in the life of each of us. Which we very often do not notice.

The philosophy of life and action, as a result of its manifestation, is what Exupery describes in his works, trying to find for himself, among other things, the answer to the question “how to live correctly?” and “what to do?” that arise in each of the people. But not each of us knows where and how to look for the answer to such questions.

Thus, in “The Citadel” he says that the goal is not to teach how to build a ship, but “to awaken in people the desire for the sea.” Then, without a doubt, people will build the ships themselves. The work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry both teaches and shows the “truth of life” and the place of man in it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is familiar to the whole world, mainly thanks to his philosophical work"A 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 Francois 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. Its big kind heart I 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, Exupéry briefly returns 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. It's literally full of accidents like this. short biography de Saint-Exupéry.

Literary success

While still working in the hot desert of Cap Jubi, Antoine writes his first great work, 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 have always been 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 memories 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 they living together stopped being 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 problems with health, 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 point, since in allotted time the plane did not return. 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.

The life and work of Exupery, the biography of this man and his personal life are what interests many readers of our time. There were many interesting moments in his life that are worth telling about. Facts from the life of Saint Exupery - a biography of one of the most mysterious authors of that time. The fate of the writer and pilot in one person is an interesting mixture, and we invite you to plunge into the past and live some moments of that time together with a talented person.

Antoine Exupery: biography

Antoine was born on June 26, 1900 in the beautiful town of France - Lyon. His father was a nobleman of not very high level, a count. Full name The boy was given Antoine de Saint Exupéry. His biography is filled with various events, and the first of them was the loss of his father at the age of 4 years. His further upbringing was taken over by his mother. She first saw to it that he graduated from a Jesuit school, and then sent him to study at a private Swiss boarding school. In 1917, Antoine became a student of architecture at the School of Arts in Paris. Thus, the mother fulfilled her parental duty and gave her son a decent education.

New stage

In 1921, Antoine was drafted into the army, and his fate changed dramatically. At first he worked in workshops at the airfield, but soon passed the exam and received a pilot's license, so far only a civilian one. A little later, he retrained as a military pilot and improved his skills in Istra. After completing an officer course in Avora, Antoine received the rank of junior lieutenant. He made many flights as an officer of the 34th regiment, but in 1923 his plane crashed and Exupery received a severe head injury. Returning from the army, he moved to the capital of France and became interested in writing. Not very successful at first. But Antoine de Exupéry, whose biography is still connected with literature, did not despair.

Antoine's activities

Since his work as a writer was not successful, he had to change his occupation and engage in trade. First, he got a job at a car company and sold cars, and then exchanged cars for books and worked in a bookstore. But he could not engage in this type of activity for long. In 1926, he was lucky enough to find a place in the Aeropostal company. Flying an airplane, Antoine delivered mail to the African continent. Then he continued to work on the mail plane, but changed directions - from Toulouse to Dakar. Having received a promotion, Antoine became the station manager in Villa Bans. It was in this place that he wrote his first story - “Southern Postal”. After this, Exupery received another promotion and moved to South America, where he became director of a branch of the Aeropostal company. While working there, he was part of a team that was searching for a missing man, Antoine's friend, Guillaume. An important point is that Exupery was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor for his significant contribution to aviation. De Saint Exupery's whole life, the biography of this man and even his death - everything is connected in one way or another with aviation, so this award was very important for the writer.

Writer's character

Everyone who knew this man said that he was a unique person. Antoine always had a smile on his face, and he loved all people in an amazing way. His small nose gave him a perky look. The writer’s generous character was distinguished by the fact that he selflessly helped everyone who needed it. However, he never expected anything in return. Count Antoine de Saint Exupéry, whose biography interests us, was, first of all, a man with a capital M. He never lied because he couldn't. He was sure that hatred was not the way out of the situation. Only love can overcome hatred. Therefore, he was loving and very kind. With all this, Antoine was extremely extreme. He could forget to turn off the tap and flood the neighbors below, he could land on the wrong runway while flying a plane, or forget to slam the apartment door. However, this in no way detracted from its merits.

Romance in the life of a writer

For the first time, the writer's heart trembled when he met his first love, Louise Vilmorne, who was from a very rich family. He sought her affection in every possible way, but she did not reciprocate and ignored his ardent advances. When Antoine was hospitalized after a plane crash, she completely forgot about his existence. Exupery took this tragedy seriously and suffered for a long time, experiencing the torment of unrequited love. Even when the writer became famous and recognized in the world, this did not in any way affect Louise’s attitude towards Saint Exupery. Antoine's biography was no longer connected with this woman. But the other ladies really liked him. Many people found him attractive, and almost everyone found him charming. The smile that always graced his face made him very good-natured and attractive.

Muse of genius

Having once suffered suffering because of unrequited love, Antoine was in no hurry to plunge into this pool again. He wanted to find a woman with whom he could start a family. And I found it. Such a woman turned out to be Consuela Carilo. There are many options for exactly how the future newlyweds met, but the best version is the one in which they were introduced by a mutual friend, Benjamin Cramier. Consuela was a widow, her previous husband, also a writer, died, and she fled from sadness into the arms of Antoine. They married in France in the spring of 1931. The wedding was very magnificent and attracted many guests. As for Consuela, reviews of this woman’s character are not always positive. She had an explosive character, was quite unbalanced and hysterical. But Antoine was madly in love with his wife. She had an extraordinary mind, read a lot and was an interesting conversationalist. She always behaved slightly arrogantly, although no one could call her a beauty. Exupery, whose biography interests the reader in every detail, considered his wife the most beautiful, and she gave him strength both in writing and in his work in aviation.

Correspondent

In parallel with his personal life, the writer’s professional life in the field of aviation also developed. After the Aeropostal company went bankrupt, Antoine worked as an aircraft tester, where his friend Didier got him a job. The work was very dangerous, and once Antoine almost died while testing another plane. A new type of activity was working as a correspondent. Having signed an agreement with the Paris Soir newspaper, Exupery traveled to different countries and wrote essays. One of the significant trips was a trip to the USSR. Having felt the whole atmosphere of the Stalinist regime, he tried to express his impressions in his essay, which was published by the newspaper. Later, from the newspaper "Entransigen" Antoine went to a region of Spain where at that time there was a civil war. Many essays from those places were the result of Exupery's work. The biography of this man is full of danger and extreme sports, and this always pushed him to further crazy actions. For example, he bought a plane and wanted to set a record by flying the Paris-Saigon line. But the plane crashed right in the middle of the desert. Antoine miraculously survived. He and the plane's mechanic were rescued by Bedouins when they were almost dying of thirst.

Great writer

Almost all of Exupery's books appeared thanks to his work in aviation and his experience as a pilot. His novels are imbued with the perception of the world through the eyes of an airplane pilot. Antoine received literary prizes who rated him as a writer:

• Femina Literary Prize.
• Grand Prix du Roman (France).
• National (USA).

Exupery's works were always multifaceted, each of them had a deep meaning hidden. Some novels concerned only the pilot, others expressed purely personal relationships. He loved to philosophize in his works, and this made readers think about the main idea that Exupery wanted to put into it. A biography, short or detailed, in any case will reveal Antoine first of all as a writer, and then as a pilot. But this is debatable. After all, without Antoine the pilot there would be no successful Antoine the writer. Therefore, who is in charge, the pilot or the writer, the question is similar to what came first: the egg or the chicken.

Literary heritage

The modern reader has the opportunity to familiarize himself with various works of Exupery. These are both articles and essays. But the main indicator of his talent as a writer are such novels as:

• "South Postal".
• "Night flight".
• "Land of People".
• "Wind, sand and stars."
• "Military pilot".
• "A little prince".

Death of a writer

There has been a lot of talk and talk about the death of the writer. After all, like Antoine himself, his death was not simple and unambiguous. When World War II began, he did not stay at home a day, and the day after the war was declared he was already in a military unit. Friends tried to dissuade him, but he was relentless. Enlisted in the reconnaissance detachment. Made many combat and reconnaissance missions. One day, July 31, 1944, he flew on reconnaissance and never returned. For a very long time he was considered missing. Only in 1998, near Marseille, a bracelet was found in the sea on which the name “Consuella” could be seen. Even later, in 2000, the wreckage of the plane on which Antoine flew was discovered. And even later, in 2008, a pilot of a German squadron admitted that it was he who shot down Exupery’s plane. The biography of this talented man is so vivid that even death should have become a kind of mystery and ended with dignity. life path great man. Lyon Airport is named after Antoine de Saint Exupéry, and this was also done for a reason.