Writing from above: representations of landscapes, places and people in the works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Abstract

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a pioneering French aviator who helped to open airmail routes in North Africa and South America during the interwar years of the early twentieth century. He was also a celebrated author who described his piloting experiences and the relations between aviation, society and human development in several popular books. Saint-Exupéry's writings contain vivid representations of landscapes, places and people from the novel perspective of the airborne observer. Based on analysis of the revised editions of most of the English-language translations of Saint-Exupéry's published works, this article reveals that his writings contain a distinctive ‘geography from above’ in which landscapes and places are culturally constructed and myths about various ‘others’ are reproduced. Such a view was important: it allowed powerful visualisations to be created and communicated, and its expressions accompanied and legitimated the imperial expropriation of land.

Keywords:

• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• aviation
• literature
• North Africa
• South America
• postcolonial

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their very helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. This article contains many references to the revised editions of the English-language translations of the literary works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which for the sake of clarity have been cross-referenced using their titles and page numbers (for instance, Night Flight, p. 35). Full bibliographic details are provided in the reference list at the end of the article. As revised versions of most of Saint-Exupéry's works were published in the year 2000, this convention avoids confusion due to the use of references in the form Saint-Exupéry 2000a, 2000b, etc.

The revised editions also contain various introductions, prefaces, biographical notes and notes on translation by several commentators, originally published in different years. Some revised editions also contain more than one of Saint-Exupéry's works in a common binding. In order to avoid confusion in the references used in this article, all page numbers refer to the revised editions of the year 2000, published by Penguin. All references to the constituent sections of those books also relate to the revised editions published in 2000.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ben Daley

Ben Daley is Lectutrer in Environmental Management at the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK