The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The Saint-Exupéry heirs bury the hatchet with the publication of the correspondence

2021-05-06T08:04:51.859Z


The 160 letters and telegrams sent to each other between 1930 and 1944 could not be edited due to a dispute between the estate of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-d'Agay and that of Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry.


Antoine and Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry left behind them the memory of a stormy relationship, a masterpiece that he wrote and she inspired,

The Little Prince

, a conflict between heirs, and a luminous correspondence, of which the publication should make people forget the disputes.

These 160 letters and telegrams sent by the spouses between 1930 and 1944 are published Thursday by Gallimard, in an edition rich in illustrations: sketches of the aviator, to which correspond drawings of the artist that she was, photographs, memories various.

Him: "

Consuelo darling, you do not understand that you are making me suffer

".

She: "

I cry with emotion, I'm so afraid of being exiled from your heart ...

"

To discover

  • Discover our file on Napoleon's bicentenary

Read also: The unpublished correspondence of the couple Antoine and Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry

These two whole personalities, a husband who was of all adventures and a woman loving above all his independence, have known as many happy times as difficult.

Consuelo was exuberant, and he was very depressed.

His multiple loves are not the sign of a Don Juan, but of an emotional wandering

, ”comments Alain Vircondelet, a biographer interviewed by AFP.

The epistolary exchanges show that nothing really separated them, even the distance, until the mysterious death of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, during a mission in the Mediterranean in July 1944.

200 million copies

The first letter from the aviator, to Buenos Aires where he fell in love with this Salvadoran woman, already outlines his most famous work.

I remember a not very old story, I change it a bit: Once upon a time there was a child who had discovered a treasure.

But this treasure was too beautiful for a child whose eyes did not know how to understand it well or whose arms did not contain it.

Then the child became melancholy

”.

“Saint-Ex” did not have time to see the prodigious success of his tale

The Little Prince

, published in 1943 in New York, nor the publication of the Parisian edition in 1946. She did.

The family counts today "

200 million copies sold and more than 450 translations

Of this book.

She draws a nice check for it every year, the amount of which is unknown.

A 1947 agreement settled the succession of a writer who left neither descendants nor wills.

In Consuelo half of the income from the work.

To the Saint-Exupéry family, the other half, plus moral rights, namely that they must give their consent to everything relating to the author's universe.

When Consuelo died in 1979, she bequeathed her rights to her secretary, the Spaniard José Martinez Fructuoso.

And the clash with the branch from Antoine's sister, Gabrielle d'Agay, will end in court.

"

Tragic love story

"

José Martinez Fructuoso was convicted in 2008 after having published the writer's writings in

Antoine et Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, un amour de legend

(Les Arènes editions, 2005). But in 2014, the d'Agays were in turn forced to donate income from a cartoon inspired by the

Little Prince

. Gallimard exposes reconciliation. The foreword by Martine Martinez Fructuoso, widow of the secretary of Consuelo, precedes that of Olivier d'Agay, grand-nephew of Antoine. "

This work would not have seen the light of day without the collaboration between the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-d'Agay estate and the Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry estate

", wrote the aviator's family in a

press

release at the end of April. She recalled "

an unsuccessful 18-year legal war to obtain joint copyright ownership.

"

The academic Alain Vircondelet, not consulted for this edition, warns however.

Not all of Consuelo's letters are there.

Of course I am delighted that this edition is coming out, even if twenty years of my work have been ignored.

But Ms. Martinez has a colossal treasure in Saint-Exupéry, and every time she talks to me about it I fall from the clouds

”.

He will reveal another small part of it, in a book to be published in August, on the genesis of the

Little Prince

on Long Island (United States).

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry: Correspondence

, Gallimard, 25 euros.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-05-06

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-18T18:40:23.346Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.