In 1926 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (author of the classic The Little Prince) began flying for the pioneering airline Latécoere - later known as Aéropostale - opening up the first mail routes across the Sahara and the Andes. Wind, Sand and Stars (1939) is drawn from this experience. Interweaving stories of encounters with nomadic Arabs and other adventures into a rich autobiographical narrative it has its climax in the extraordinary story of Saint-Exupéry's crash in the Libyan Desert in 1936, and his miraculous survival.