Just like former commercial pilot Gene Roddenberry (the writer and creator of Star Trek), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also a writer and creator, creating my all time favorite children’s book, “The Little Price.”
And as I pointed out in my post two weeks ago, Roddenberry’s writing career and subsequent imaginative creations came directly from his flying career and airplane crash.
Saint-Exupéry’s creations also came from his flying career and an airplane crash (ironically, his airplane crash occurred in a desert just like Roddenberry’s):
On 30 December, 1935, Saint-Exupéry crashed in the Libyan desert on a flight from Paris to Saigon.
He survived the crash but quickly became dehydrated and started experiencing hallucinations. He was near death before being rescued by a Bedouin on the fourth day.
“The Little Prince” begins with a pilot being stranded in the desert, and then evolves into a very imaginative, almost hallucinatory story.
As I said, it’s my favorite children’s book, and I’m attaching some of Saint-Exupéry’s concepts that he created for the story.
