Literary Lunch

Antoine de Saint Exupery was born on June 29, 1900 in Lyon, France; he was the third of five children. His father was a Viscount who died when Antoine was three. He attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he studied architecture. In 1921, he joined the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs and was sent to Strasburg to train as a pilot. After training, he moved to Paris and worked in an office.  In 1926, Antoine worked as an international flying postman between Toulouse and Dakar; by 1929 he was the director of Cape Juby airfield in Morrocco; later that year he moved to Argentenia to become director of the Aeroposta Argentina Company. He married Consuelo Suncin in 1931; but still continued to have affairs with other women. In 1935, Antoine’s plane crashed in the Libyan Sahara desert while he was attempting to break a speed record flying from Paris to Saigon. They were rescued after four days in the scorching desert. During World War II, Antoine joined the French airforce. Antoine and his wife moved to New York City in 1941 and lived in Canada during 1942. They returned to France where Antoine flew with the Free French Forces. He disappeared during a flight over Southern France in July of 1944.

Saint Exupery’s first published story was L’Aviateur. His first book (Courrier Sud) was published in 1929. He wrote the book he is most famous for Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) in 1942 and it was published in 1943. In all, he wrote 14 literary works, most of which were published posthumously.

Antoine de Saint Exupery disappeared and was believed to have died on July 31, 1944. The remains of his plane were found off the coast of Marseille in 2004.

Jean-Paul Sartre was born on June 21, 1905 in Paris, France.  His mother was a cousin of Dr. Albert Schweitzer.  Sartre received a Doctorate in Philosophy from the Ecole Normale Superieure. While there he met Simone De Beauvoir with whom he had a life-long friendship and romance. In 1929, he was drafted into the army, he was released in 1931.  During World War II he was drafted again and served as a meteorologist. He was captured by the Germans and spent 9 months in a prisoner of war camp. After the war, Sartre taught at the Lycee Pasteur.  For most of his life, Sartre was a political activist, supporting many of the causes of the day. He was also a life-long believer in communism, although never joined the party. He ended his friendship with Albert Camus when Camus turned against communism in 1951.

Jean-Paul Sartre published his first book, L’Imagination in 1936. It was a critique of psychology.  His first novel, La Nausee(Nausea) was published in 1938. It is seen as a manifesto of Existentialism , the philosophy he believed in and preached.  Some of Sartre’s better known works are the play Huis-clos (No Exit) which was published in 1944 and Le Mur (1939). During his career, Sartre wrote plays, novels, non-fiction studies and biographies. His last published work, published posthumously in 1984, was Les Carnets de la drole de guerre:  Novembre 1939-Mars 1940 (War Diaries: Notebooks from a phony war, 1939-1940).

Jean-Paul Sartre died on April 15, 1980.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut; she was one of eleven children born to her preacher father and his wife.  Her mother died when she was five-years-old. Her father frequently gave sermons condemning slavery. She attended the Hartford Female Seminary which was run by her sister, later becoming a teacher at that same school. In 1832, the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1836, Harriet married widower Calvin E. Stowe; they had seven children, only three out lived their parents.

Her first published work was the novel The Mayflower, or, Sketches of scenes and characters among the descendants of the Pilgrims in 1834. She published the book she is most known for, Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852; it started out being serialized in a literary journal. It was a novel that was very critical of slavery. Her novel, Dred, was also an anti-slavery novel which was published in 1856.  Stowe wrote poetry, travel memoirs, childrens books and novels.  In addition, she wrote a reader’s key to understanding Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She also started an anti-slavery weekly journal called National Era and in 1862 she met President Abraham Lincoln. Her last published work was Poor Life in 1890.

Harriet Beecher Stowe died on July 1, 1896.