The Little Prince

Description

"Of all the books written in French over the past century, Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Le Petit Prince" is surely the best loved in the most tongues." New Yorker All grown-ups were children once (but most of them have forgotten). A pilot who has crash landed in the desert awakes to see an extraordinary little boy. '"Please," asks the stranger, "will you draw me a little lamb?"' Baffled by the little prince's incessant questioning, the pilot pulls out his pencil, and starts to draw. As the little prince's curiosity takes them further on their journey together, the pilot is able to piece together an understanding of the tiny planet from which the prince has come and of his incredible travels across the universe.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, born in Lyon in 1900, was a French writer and aviator. He is best remembered for The Little Prince, and for his books about aviation adventures. In 1921 he began his military service and trained as a pilot, going on to become one of the pioneers of international postal flight. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the French Air Force flying reconnaissance missions until the armistice with Germany. Following a spell writing in the United States, he joined the Free French Forces. Then on 31 July 1944, he went on a mission to collect information on German troop movements in the Rhone valley and was never seen again. It was assumed that he was shot down over the Mediterranean.

The Little Prince moves from asteroid to desert, from fable and comedy to enigmatic tragedy, in order to make one recurrent point: You can't love roses. You can only love a rose -- Adam Gopnik * New Yorker * Ros Schwartz's translation is beautifully judged * Financial Times *