BOOKS
CATEGORIES:
- VIEW ALL
- 101-Page Classics
- American Classics
- Collections
- English Classics
- Evergreens
- French Classics
- German Classics
- Gothic Classics
- Great Poets Series
- Great Women Writers
- Irish Classics
- Italian Classics
- Non-Fiction
- Other Literatures
- Poetry
- Quirky Classics
- Russian Classics
- Scottish Literature
- Short stories
- Subscriptions
- Syllabus / GCSE
- Theatre
Under the pressure of his boss, the intransigent Rivière, the airmail pilot Fabien attempts a perilous flight during a heavy night-time thunderstorm in Argentina. As conditions get worse and the radio communication with Fabien becomes increasingly difficult, Rivière begins to question his uncompromising methods, and his distress turns to guilt when the pilot’s wife comes to find him in search of answers.
Based on Saint-Exupéry’s own experiences as a commercial pilot, Night Flight is a haunting and lyrical examination of duty, destiny and the individual, as well as an authentic and tragic portrayal of the intrepid early days of human air travel.
REVIEWS
What gives this book an authentic and inimitable flavour is the personal confrontation with a recurrent peril … Quite aside from its literary merits, which I much admire, this book is valuable as a document; and it is the unusual combination of these two qualities which makes Night Flight so exceptionally important.
André Gide
This, then, is The Little Prince for grownups: a story about what one makes of an immense solitude (very well translated by David Carter; and the cover of the book is beautifully conceived), written by a remarkable man.
Nicholas Lezard
The Guardian
