Saint-Exupéry, the lord of sands

October 1926. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who dreams of becoming an airplane pilot, succeeds in getting himself hired in Toulouse to work for the Latécoère company, the future Aéropostale. Created a few months after the First World War, this company took up the challenge of transporting mail by air between France and South America via West Africa. Saint-Exupéry was soon dispatched to Cap Juby, a strategic stopover in the Sahara. There, in contact with nomadic tribes, the young pilot drew inspiration for his first novel, Courrier Sud. The genesis of The Little Prince, which would make him a world-famous author, is not far off...