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I have long suspected that I was in love with Saint-Exupery. Now I am certain of it. I also realized that I really need to read his other books (i.e. not The Little Prince).
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Saint-Exupéry
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From a master biographer, the life story of the daring French aviator who became one of the twentieth century's most beloved authors
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry disappeared at age forty-four during a reconnaissance flight over southern France. At the time he was best known for a career of daring flights over the Sahara, the Pyrenees, and Patagonia and for his contributions to the science of aviation. But the solitary hours he spent above the earth in open cockpit airplanes gave birth to a more famous legacy, a series of enchanting, autobiographical novels and the classic story The Little Prince , still the most translated book in the French language.
An impoverished aristocrat from one of France's oldest families, Saint-Exupéry moved at age twenty-seven to the western Sahara Desert, to live alone in a plank shack and manage the way station for the Aéropostale, the French mail service. His careers as a novelist and an aviator were born here, and his life once he returned to Europe was defined―with brilliant and catastrophic results―by the sense of isolated fascination and curiosity he developed in the desert.
In this definitive biography, Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff reveals an intrepid and unconventional life that rivals the best adventure stories.
"A remarkable biography; indeed, it is impossible to imagine the job better done. It is balanced, perceptive, thoroughly researched, and exceptionally well-written." ―The New Yorker
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry disappeared at age forty-four during a reconnaissance flight over southern France. At the time he was best known for a career of daring flights over the Sahara, the Pyrenees, and Patagonia and for his contributions to the science of aviation. But the solitary hours he spent above the earth in open cockpit airplanes gave birth to a more famous legacy, a series of enchanting, autobiographical novels and the classic story The Little Prince , still the most translated book in the French language.
An impoverished aristocrat from one of France's oldest families, Saint-Exupéry moved at age twenty-seven to the western Sahara Desert, to live alone in a plank shack and manage the way station for the Aéropostale, the French mail service. His careers as a novelist and an aviator were born here, and his life once he returned to Europe was defined―with brilliant and catastrophic results―by the sense of isolated fascination and curiosity he developed in the desert.
In this definitive biography, Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff reveals an intrepid and unconventional life that rivals the best adventure stories.
"A remarkable biography; indeed, it is impossible to imagine the job better done. It is balanced, perceptive, thoroughly researched, and exceptionally well-written." ―The New Yorker
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1994
This edition
- Format
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560 pages, Paperback
- Published
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February 7, 2006 by Holt Paperbacks
- ISBN
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9780805079135
- ASIN
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0805079130
- Language
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English
About the author
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Stacy Schiff is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize, the Ambassador Award in American Studies, and the Gilbert Chinard Prize of the Institut Français d'Amérique. All three were New York Times Notable Books; the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, and The Economist also named A Great Improvisation a Best Book of the Year. The biographies have been published in a host of foreign editions.
Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Director's Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She was awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Schiff has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. She lives in New York City.
Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Director's Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She was awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Schiff has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. She lives in New York City.
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Rating(3.8 / 5.0, 48 votes)
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Schiff focuses on Saint-Exupery's adult life weaving together his experiences as a pilot, his writing, and his personal life. Through her account and analysis, Saint-Exupery's person comes alive. She includes some literary criticism of his works, including noting the real people and events from which he drew, personal and national situations which influenced him or which he addressed, and evaluations of his prose and philosophizing. I found the book quite riveting.
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معتقدم این کتاب، شاهکار زندگینامه نویسیه.
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Click here to hear my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!
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A great read about a great and colourful man.
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I started this book a long time ago, but this extraordinarily detailed account of Saint-Exupéry and his fascinating life required more of a commitment than I could make at the time while juggling a demanding teaching load. So, having consigned it to the bottom of my stack over a year ago, I decided, finally, to prioritize it as a summer read and commit to finishing its 455 pages. Once in, I was totally engrossed by the story of this incredibly complex and brilliant man. Schiff's take on Saint-Ex, the man, and every inch of his rich and varied, but complicated life is grounded in her thorough, painstaking research and astute, nuanced understanding of the history and people of the period Saint-Ex inhabited. Schiff brings him to life and sucks her reader into his dizzying intellectual and emotional life, filled with adventure and risk, friendship and love, humor and melancholy. As a French teacher, I have re-read and taught Saint-Exupéry's, Le Petit Prince, to high school students over the last 24 years, and never tire of it. With each new reading and each new class come more discovery, more insight, more reflection. Having read Schiff's beautiful rendering of this man and the arc of his life, I look forward to what this spring's reading with my classes will bring.
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Like Saint-Ex, I am a pilot, and I was born and raised in France.
After a few decades in Aviation, I thought I knew most of of the truths and legends surrounding this very charismatic gentleman.
So, reading an English language biography by a woman, written half a century after his death, I was interested but more curious than expectant...
Stacy Schiff blew my mind with clear and very profound insights.
Not only does she understand and describe the man with superior clairvoyance, but she also paints a story of France, my original homeland, that is more precise and picturesque that I ever knew or imagined.
I loved it.
After a few decades in Aviation, I thought I knew most of of the truths and legends surrounding this very charismatic gentleman.
So, reading an English language biography by a woman, written half a century after his death, I was interested but more curious than expectant...
Stacy Schiff blew my mind with clear and very profound insights.
Not only does she understand and describe the man with superior clairvoyance, but she also paints a story of France, my original homeland, that is more precise and picturesque that I ever knew or imagined.
I loved it.
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I had high hopes for this one as I am very interested in the author. However, there was SO much description and attention to tedious details, that I just couldn't keep up with it. It never brought me in as a reader. I was bummed because I wanted to know more about his life, but really might need to find a different, shorter and easier to read version that will give some of the facts.
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