Night Flight

By Antoine De Saint-Exupery

In this gripping novel, Saint-Exupéry tells about the brave men who piloted night mail planes from Patagonia, Chile, and Paraguay to Argentina in the early days of commercial aviation. Preface by André Gide. Translated by Stuart Gilbert.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Release date: Mar 20, 1974
• ISBN: 9780547542799

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944), born in Lyons, France, is one of the world’s best loved and widest read writers. His timeless fable, The Little Prince, has sold more than 100 million copies and has been translated into nearly every language. His pilot’s memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, won the National Book Award and was named the #1 adventure book of all time by Outside magazine and was ranked #3 on National Geographic Adventure’s list of all-time-best exploration books. His other books include Night Flight; Southern Mail; and Airman's Odyssey. A pilot at twenty-six, he was a pioneer of commercial aviation and flew in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In 1944, while flying a reconnaissance mission for his French air squadron, he disappeared over the Mediterranean.  Stacy Schiff is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of several bestselling biographies and historical works including, most recently, The Witches: Salem, 1692. In 2018 she was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. Awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she was inducted into the Academy in 2019. Schiff has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. She lives in New York City.

Reviews for Night Flight

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Even translated the language is rich and evocative. It is however overcome by macholosophy. About a night mail hub in Buenos Aries, the director, ground personnel and pilots under pressure to preform or be eliminated as impractical. Not that the ideas are invalid, just that the nobility of the cause of night mail may not be up to the costs, and that it is a very insular male world in which the values are tended.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Vliegeniersverhalen, geplaatst in een ruimere context: het lot en de menselijke wil, verantwoordelijkheid en plicht, noncommunicatie tussen mensen. Mooie fragmenten, maar niet alles is evenwichtig uitgewerkt, nogal obstinate karaktertekening.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One single night in time. This is the simple, subtle, yet tragically beautiful story of three mail planes coming into Buenos Aires from Chile, Patagonia and Paraguay. On the ground is director Monsieur Riviere whose chief worry is the mail getting to its destination on time. He is bulldog stubborn about it despite looming dangers. Meanwhile, in the air, one of the pilots, newlywed Fabien, faces danger when cyclone - fierce storms blow in from the Andes.

[amerynth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Antoine de Saint Exupery's "Night Flight" is the story of one night in the lives of the pilots and ground grew who flew the mail across the Andes from Patagonia, Chile and Paraguay to Argentina so it could be packed on another plane for Europe. The flights were fraught with danger as sudden storms, cyclones push the planes toward the craggy mountains below. The whole operation is overseen by Riviere, a no-nonsense boss whose primary concern is not the safety of the pilots, but the ability to get the mail in on time.I found this little book to be okay -- it was an interesting story and a very quick read. However, it really pales in comparison to Saint Exupery's incredible "Wind, Sand and Stars," which is one of the finest books about flying I've ever read, and a fantastic adventure novel besides. This story is just not as interesting unfortunately.

[whwatson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Several years ago I read Wind, Sand, and Stars by this same author (after seeing his book listed within the all time top 10, best true life adventure novels). I absolutely enjoyed it, and to this day, rank it as one of the best books I've read.

With Night Flight I find myself disappointed given that previous enthusiasm. This book, or more accurately short story, still employs his supurb poetic writing style, but it lacks the level of depth and feeling of experience that I found so engrossing previously.

It is, however, still a good read, and I look forward to, and intend to explore more of Saint-Exupery's writings.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Vliegeniersverhalen, geplaatst in een ruimere context: het lot en de menselijke wil, verantwoordelijkheid en plicht, noncommunicatie tussen mensen. Mooie fragmenten, maar niet alles is evenwichtig uitgewerkt, nogal obstinate karaktertekening.

[danielstj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an excellent novella. Saint-Exupéry takes us into the minds, thoughts, and feelings of the principal characters and creates a story vivid, rife with entangling themes and mixed emotions that allow us to experience it as a emotional, philosophical, and moral tale. Everything that you want in a literary novella is here and it is by no means preaching or ingratiating, This was great, well-written, and (in my opinion) extremely readable.4.5 stars- no less!

[polaris4_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This dose of early aviation fiction was quite an enjoyable read, but not quite as good as I'd hoped. There are though passages of beautifully lyrical and quite poetic writing - basically when Saint-Exupéry writes on flying, and we follow the story of the brave newly-wed Patagonia airmail pilot Fabien - and then some lengthier interludes of less memorable passages from the perspective of the middle aged and no-nonsense airmail company Monsieur le Directeur Rivière. Both characters are apparently based on the author's own experiences in each role at one time or another.Written and published in 1931, S-E describes in this short novel the story of the pioneering Airmail lines which criss-crossed southern South America at that time, bringing the post from Patagonia, Paraguay, and Chile over to Buenos Aires, before its dispatch to Europe across Atlantic skies. The tale in particular tells how the pilot Fabien is at the sharp end of the director's orders. Rivière suffers the internal anguish and doubting of one who has staked his career on the commercial wisdom of advancing the cause of night flying. With Fabien we ferry the precious cargo through the black, often in unpredictably harsh weather, close to the massive Andes range, and are inside his very dimly illuminated cockpit with at times scant visibility, together with the operator and his faltering radio reception... 'An hour later the radio operator of the Patagonia mail-plane felt himself softly heaved up, as by a giant shoulder. He looked about him: heavy clouds were extinguishing the stars. He leaned over and peered down at the earth, looking for the lights of villages, hidden like glow-worms in the fields, but nothing shone in this black grass.'As an horrendous storm closes in and slowly snuffs out the weak airborne communications and banishes any remaining glimpse of the path ahead, Rivière hovers nervously near the night-shift clerks and operators at the other end of those brief radio connections, constantly asking them to ring to the way-stations to get the latest messages from the planes in flight. Fabien meanwhile, fights on: 'As he climbed, he found it easier to counteract the air currents by taking his bearings on the stars. Their pale magnets attracted him. He had struggled so long for a glimpse of light that now he would not have let even the faintest get away from him. Having found the inn-lamp he yearned for, he would have circled round this coveted sign till death. And thus he rose towards these fields of light.' A straightforward book with some very moving descriptions of early flying in fearsome conditions. I liked it, but I think I'll prefer his more extensive memoir Wind, Sand and Stars which I hope to read one day.