wind sand and stars by antoine de saint exupéry

Like Conrad, Saint-Exupéry is a poet of action' André Maurois If you enjoyed Wind, Sand and Stars, you might like Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

Saint-Exupéry's plane disappeared during a mission in World War II. Saint-Exupéry's popular children's book The Little Prince is also read by adults for its allegorical meaning. Later works, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Flight to Arras, stress his humanistic philosophy. His first two books, Southern Mail and Night Flight, are distinguished by a poetic evocation of the romance and discipline of flying. Writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-44), was born in Lyon, France. This book explores the transcendent perceptions that arise when life is tested to its limits. 'Self-discovery comes when a man measures himself against an obstacle,' writes Saint-Exupéry. Interweaving encounters with nomadic Arabs and other adventures into a richly textured autobiographical narrative, it has its climax in the extraordinary story of Saint-Exupéry's crash in the Libyan Desert in 1936, and his miraculous survival.

Wind, Sand and Stars is drawn from this experience.

In 1926 de Saint-Exupéry began flying for the pioneering airline Latécoère - later known as Aéropostale - opening up the first mail routes across the Sahara and the Andes. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is translated from the French with an introduction by William Rees. Both a gripping tale of adventure and a poetic meditation, Antoine de Saint Exupéry's Wind, Sand and Stars is the lyrical autobiography of an aviation pioneer, from the author of The Little Prince.

Wind sand and stars by antoine de saint exupéry