Vol de nuit [Night Flight]

Paris, Gallimard, (30 May) 1931.
1 vol. (170 x 220 mm) of 181 p., [1] and 1 f. Paperback, in blue half calf box, gilt title.

First edition. Preface by André Gide.
One of the 109 re-imposed copies reserved for bibliophiles of the N. R. F., on laid paper (no. LXXVII).
It was printed for Léon Netter (1897 – 1987), a famous lawyer and chargé de mission at the Ministry of Finance.

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

‘It’s beautiful to take off at night. You pull back on the throttle, facing south, and ten seconds later you turn the landscape upside down facing north. The city is now nothing more than the bottom of the sea”: in 1929, having become director of operations for the company “Aeroposta Argentina”, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was tasked with opening a line to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, some 2,500 kilometres south of Buenos Aires. The marathon inaugural flight of more than eighteen hours – much of which was spent in the dark – and the anxiety of those left on the ground are all elements transfigured by the poetry of this book.

Two years after the publication of Courrier Sud, it confirmed the author’s literary talent, his humanism and his passion for faraway lands and for the people who explore and inhabit them.

The book, with a preface by André Gide, won the Prix Femina.