![]() ![]() ![]() He did have to improvise on models for some of the characters as he didn’t have access to a sheep or a tiger. ![]() Saint-Exupéry was reported to have been drawing versions of the title character in the margins of manuscripts and letters for some time ahead of the publication. The remains of his aircraft were found nearby by a diver in 2000 and it wasn’t until 2004 that the French government confirmed that the remnants belonged to Saint-Exupéry’s vessel, marking a tragic end to an extraordinary life. The author’s body was never recovered and there were no clues about his fate until 1998, when his silver identity bracelet was found by a fisherman off the coast of Marseille. In the war, he flew reconnaissance missions and took off on 31 July 1944 from an airbase on Corsica, never to return. Saint-Exupéry’s second plane crash of note would be his last. Both Saint-Exupéry and his mechanic-navigator André Prévot miraculously survived four days in the baking hot environment, suffering from intense dehydration and hallucinations, when they were rescued by a Bedouin on a camel who happened to be passing by. Ahead of joining the French Air Force at the start of the war, in 1935 he attempted to break the record for the fastest trip between Paris and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), crashing his plane in the Libyan desert. ![]()
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