the Author of THE_LITTLE_PRINCE (born 1900)

from Writer's Almanac (American Public Media, Garrison Keillor):

June 29 is the birthday of French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900), born in Lyon, France (1900). Saint-Exupéry was a renowned pilot, but is best known these days for his classic children’s novella, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince, 1943), about a little boy who lives on a planet so small he can watch the sun set 44 times a day. He falls to Earth and befriends a stranded pilot.
He spent his childhood in a castle at Saint-Maurice-de-Rémens with a coterie of aunts, cousins, sisters, and nurses. His father had a stroke when Antoine was four and he grew up aristocratic, but impoverished. He was fascinated by airplanes and delighted in tying sheets to poles and attaching them to his bicycle so he could try to fly. He was conscripted at 21 into the French air force, qualifying as military pilot a year later. By 1926, he’d helped establish airmail routes over Northwest Africa, the South Atlantic, and South America, which made him a pioneer in postal aviation.
Despite injuries from numerous crashes, he continued to fly, and in 1935, while trying to win 150,000 francs by breaking the speed record in an air race from Paris to Saigon, he and his mechanic crashed in the Sahara desert. They wandered for four days with only a thermos of sweet coffee, crackers, and chocolate. They were so dehydrated they stopped sweating. A Bedouin found them and administered a native remedy to rehydrate them. Saint-Exupéry used some of this experience when writing The Little Prince.
In 1944, he flew a reconnaissance mission over France and never returned. It was assumed his plane had crashed in the Alps, but more than 60 years later, the wreckage was recovered from the Mediterranean seabed, not far from Provence.
The Little Prince is considered a classic of literature that examines loneliness, friendship, and philosophy. Saint-Exupéry did the watercolors for the book, which was published after his death. It’s been translated into over 250 languages and dialects, including Braille, and sells 2 million copies annually. In the dedication to the book, Saint-Exupéry wrote, “All grown-ups were once children — although few of them remember it.”
When he was asked how he would like to die, Saint-Exupéry chose water. He said: “You don’t feel yourself dying. You simply feel as if you’re falling asleep and beginning to dream.”