To understand The Little Prince, it helps to know who wrote it. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a French writer who, first of all, was an aviator, and this is not a minor biographical note: flight, the desert and the solitude of great distances are the stuff his literature is made of.
The aviator who became a writer
Saint-Exupéry lived in the first half of the 20th century, when aviation was still a pioneering and dangerous activity, made up of couriers transported along risky routes over mountains and deserts. He knew firsthand the experience of falling, isolation and finding himself again in landscapes where there was no distraction possible. It is no coincidence that The Little Prince begins with an aviator who crashes in the Sahara desert.
This experience gave his writing a rare quality: that of someone who thinks about the human condition from concrete experience, and not from the office. The desert, in his work, is never just a geographical setting; it is a spiritual desert, the place where the soul can finally hear itself.
A work crossed by flight
Before The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry had already transformed aviation into literature in books that reflect on duty, responsibility and human bonds. His idea that true command arises from care, and not from domination, runs through his entire work and reappears in the boy's story, for example in his criticism of the king who only wants to be obeyed.
The visionary of 1943
The Little Prince was published in 1943, in the middle of the Second World War. It is amazing how, even at that moment, the author anticipates dilemmas that seemed distant: the vain person in the book, who lives for applause and exchanges being for opinion, foreshadows decades in advance the world of likes, selfies and followers. The businessman, reduced to his role, echoes the alienation of modern work.
Saint-Exupéry wrote a work that seems childish and is, in fact, deeply philosophical, capable of talking to Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus. Knowing the aviator behind the writer is understanding why his most famous book continues to find us in every rereading. To dive into this analysis, watch the full class.
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Who wrote The Little Prince?
French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who published the work in 1943. The book was born from his own flying experience, including a crash in the desert, which opens the narrative.
What did Antoine de Saint-Exupéry do besides writing?
He was an airline pilot, a pioneering and dangerous profession in his time. Flight, the desert and the solitude of the routes permeate all of his work, from Land of Men to The Little Prince.
When was The Little Prince written?
In 1943, during the Second World War. Already that year, Saint-Exupéry anticipated themes of a modernity that would only become evident decades later, such as the vanity of image and alienation through work.
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Source class (YouTube): O Pequeno Príncipe, de Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (NousCast)