FedM is a student of Art History in Tours. Aged just 22, he already has one album (Anonyman) to his name, published by Merluche Comics. FedM is strongly influenced by comics and mangas and pays tribute on his blog to many a popular icon such as Robert de Niro and Wolverine.

Today he adopts a deliberate “cartoon” style for his version of the Little Prince. Two of the emblematic characters from the tale are easily recognised: the rose  and the aviator (whose features and cigarette cannot fail to recall a certain Antoine).

A lot of book shops have sold out of the Little Prince pop-up book, which means that the animated book has found its way to the foot of many Christmas trees and into the hearts of children this Christmas. In a matter of a few months, this adorable book of a new kind has become hard to find.

Thank you for contributing to the success of this new vision of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s tale. We hope you very much enjoy reading it.

Few books are avaible in the online store, just click on the picture.

Little princes and princesses the world over, look up at the stars, see them sparkle; somewhere up in the sky there is a Little Prince on his asteroid, taking care of his rose.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

In the drawing, the Little Prince has apparently asked Uderzo to draw him a sheep, but Uderzo seems to have gone over the top. The Little Prince’s planet is covered not in baobabs but in sheep, happily grazing the surface of asteroid B612.

This is a year of celebration for Russia, marking fifty years since the Little Prince was translated into Russian. The Little Prince is represented in Russia by the voluntary association The Little Prince’s Stars, headed by Igor Shamraev. To mark the fiftieth anniversary, an audio recording of the book has been made in partnership with the association Podari Zhizn (Give Life). Famous artists such as Tchulpan Khamatova, Konstantin Khabensky, Mikhail Efremov and  Mikhail Efremov lend their voices to the tale.

All proceeds from the sale of the recording will go to Podari Zhizn, which is raising funds for a cytogenetic (cell analysis) laboratory for Russia’s National Paediatric Hospital. The laboratory will be officially named after the Little Prince in spring 2010.

On 16 November 2009, we told you about Bruno d’Agay’s journey around South America in search of documents and first-hand accounts of the exploits of Saint-Exupéry and l’Aéropostale. Well, Bruno arrived safely and is now in Argentina – in Concordia, to be precise. In the chapter entitled Oasis in his book Wind, Sand and Stars, Saint-Exupéry writes of a heavy landing in which one of the wheels on his landing gear was damaged.

As he was attempting to repair his aircraft, he met the Fuchs family. While he was waiting for the repairs to be completed, he accepted an invitation to be their guest at the family castle of San Carlos in Entre Rios province. It proved to be a vast, somewhat dilapidated building but the furniture was always impeccably cleaned and polished, an aspect that delighted Saint-Exupéry the moment he stepped into the castle.

Ileana Surducan is an artist from the town of Cluj-Napoca in Romania, studying Ceramics at Art School. Ileana has a great love of drawing, and has set up a blog on which she regularly posts some of her illustrations. We love the way she handles colours, her original characters (including her own graphic avatar) and the warmth of her drawings that lure the eye to linger over every detail.

Ileana entered her representation of the Little Prince for a competition launched on the Internet. We were impressed by her technique, with the snake blending into the scarf, and the sense of loneliness given off by the illustration.  In its mingling of grey, black and white, it is also an intensely poetic rendering.

You can see more of Ileana’s work on her blog.

The Rencontres Internationales Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a three-day invitation-only event for those with a special interest in the message of Saint-Exupéry, was made up of debates, lectures and exchanges of views, interspersed with artistic presentations. After the excerpt by Nikolaus Schapfl, our next offering is a reading from Terre des Hommes (« Wind, Sand and Stars« ). Actress Marie-Christine Barrault reads the passage in which Saint-Exupéry, then a reporter for daily newspaper Paris Soir is sent on an assignment to Moscow.

He recounts his journey by train and gives a description of his fellow-passengers, Polish workers expelled from France. In this extract, Saint-Exupéry’s attention lingers on a couple as he contemplates the beauty of their sleeping child:  « I studied that smooth forehead, that gentle pout of the lips, and I said to myself here is the face of a musician, a Mozart as a child; here is a fine promise of life.« 

Last June, the author of  La mémoire du Petit Prince was invited to the Rencontres internationales Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a three-day invitation-only event for those with a special interest in Saint-Exupéry’s message. While still hard at work on his book, Jean-Pierre Guéno accepted the invitation to speak about the modernity of Saint-Exupéry’s thought, and how it is possible to discern in his message an interest in what we now call sustainable development. Or rather, perhaps, his worries over the many forms of waste in our society, which he saw as « a great termite mound ».

With no more ado, we invite you to watch and hear Jean-Pierre Guéno talking about Saint-Exupéry, a writer with a voice as compelling as that of the Little Prince addressing the aviator lost in the desert.

Read what others had to say on the Rencontres internationales Antoine de Saint-Exupéry website.

La mémoire du Petit Prince is available from the Little Prince online store.