7/20/2023 0 Comments Carol panzarellaFollowing the devastating Battle of France, he escaped his home nation with his wife, Salvadoran writer and artist Consuelo Suncin, to New York City, where they arrived on the very last day of 1940. Then came the Nazi invasion of Europe and World War II, in which Saint-Exupéry served as a reconnaissance pilot. ![]() After he crash-landed in the Libyan desert, he composed Wind, Sand and Stars, which earned him more accolades and five months on The New York Times’ best-seller list (as well as inspiration for the narrator in The Little Prince). He wrote smash hits such as the award-winning Night Flight. As Saint-Exupéry went from flying airplanes, to odd jobs, and back to flying, he was writing fiction for adults. Soon after, officers discovered his flying prowess and he began a lengthy-albeit sporadic-aviation career. How did Saint-Exupéry, an accomplished aviator and fighter pilot himself, as well as a prolific author, come to write the beloved tale? And considering its setting in French north Africa and other unmistakably French influences, how can it also be, as one museum curator argues, an essential New York story too?Īfter an unsuccessful university career, a 21-year-old Saint-Exupéry accepted a position as a basic-rank soldier in the French military in 1921. In the end, the boy leaves to return to his planet and rejoin his troublesome rose, leaving his new friend with heartfelt memories and a reverence for the way children see the world. The prince relates tale after tale to the pilot, who is sympathetic to the boy’s confusion over “important” adult concerns. He learns the boy is a prince of a small planet (on which he is the only human inhabitant), and, after leaving his planet because his friend (a rose) was acting up, he traveled the galaxy meeting people on other planets. The plot is both simple yet breathtakingly abstract: After crash-landing in the middle of the Sahara Desert, an unnamed aviator is surprised to come across a young, healthy-looking boy. Since then there have been sequels (one by Saint-Exupery’s niece), a theme park in South Korea, a museum in Japan, a French boutique with branded Little Prince merchandise, another film adaptation, and most recently, a translation in the Arabic dialect known as Hassānīya, making the book one of the most widely translated work of all-time. ![]() Soon, the prince traveled to other media audiobook vinyls debuted as early as 1954, which progressed to radio and stage plays, and eventually a 1974 film starring Bob Fosse and Gene Wilder. Though it only arrived in France after World War II, The Little Prince made it to Poland, Germany and Italy before the decade was up. ![]() The highly imaginative novella about a young, intergalactic traveler, spent two weeks on The New York Times’ best-seller list and went through at least three printings by December of that year. Though reviewers were initially confused about who, exactly, French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s had written The Little Prince for, readers of all ages embraced the young boy from Asteroid B-612 when it hit stores 75 years ago this week.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |