Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Author
Shafiq Naz
Translator
Le Petit Prince – English
The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is one of the rare literary works that speak to both children and adults with equal force, simplicity, and depth. First published in 1943, amid the turmoil of World War II, this brief but luminous book has since become one of the most translated and beloved works in world literature. It has crossed borders, languages, and generations—not through spectacle, but through the quiet clarity of its questions: What is love? What makes something truly important? How do we see what is invisible?
Saint-Exupéry was a pioneering aviator, a poet of the skies, and a man deeply sensitive to the moral and spiritual crisis of modern humanity. Le Petit Prince, written during his exile in New York, carries the longing of displacement and the wisdom of solitude. It is a tale of a young prince who leaves his tiny asteroid and travels to other planets, each populated by a curious archetype of adulthood: the king obsessed with power, the vain man craving admiration, the businessman counting stars. These encounters, at once whimsical and biting, reflect the narrow concerns that often govern the grown-up world.
But it is on Earth, in the desert, where the story truly blossoms. Here, the prince meets a fox who teaches him the meaning of taming, love, and loss. He tends to his rose in memory, befriends a stranded aviator, and speaks truths that children instinctively understand and adults too often forget. “What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the fox says, perhaps the most enduring line in the book, and the key to its wisdom.
The enduring power of The Little Prince lies not in the plot, but in its voice: tender, melancholic, luminous. It does not moralize. It invites. It does not explain. It opens. The book is at once a fable, a meditation, and a farewell, written by a man who vanished over the Mediterranean the year after its publication, as if becoming part of the sky he so loved.
This English translation by Shafiq Naz brings Saint-Exupéry’s masterpiece to readers with grace, clarity, and emotional resonance. With sensitivity to tone and meaning, the translation preserves the original’s poetic sparseness while allowing its moral and philosophical heart to shine through. This edition also includes Saint-Exupéry’s original watercolour illustrations, whose gentle, dreamlike images have become inseparable from the book’s charm and meaning. The drawings, like the words, speak softly, yet linger deeply.
Whether one is encountering the little prince for the first time or returning to him after many years, this edition invites the reader to pause, to listen, and, above all, to feel. In a world still crowded with noise, The Little Prince reminds us to hear with the heart.
Bibliography
Publisher : Alhamra Publishing
Published : May 1, 2025
Language : English
ISBN : 978-94-645-9332-7
Format : Hardback - Paperback
Pages : 104
Dimensions : 216 x 280 mm
