Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) was a French writer and aviator whose flying shaped his fiction and memoir-like narratives. He worked as a pilot in the early days of airmail, experiences reflected in books such as *Night Flight* (1931) and *Wind, Sand and Stars* (1939). During World War II he wrote *The Little Prince* (1943), a philosophical tale that became his best-known work. Saint-Exupéry also served as a military pilot. In 1944 he disappeared during a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean, and was declared dead. His writing often explores friendship, duty, and human responsibility.