"Yakan-Hikou" by Antoine de Sant-Exupery

Probably as you know, Antoine de Sant-Exupery is a pilot and a famous write in the world. Japanese people usually call his name only 'Sant-Exupery'.

Anyway this book contains two stories. One is 'Yakan-Hikou' or 'Vol de Nuit' and the other is 'Nanpou-Yuubin-ki' or 'Courrier Sud'. Both are written about the air services in the beginning of 20th century. At that time the manipulation of airplanes was extremely difficult, and flight at night or over large desert was very dangerous.

Honestly speaking, these stories were very difficult for me - especially 'Courrier Sud'. One reason is that the translation is very literal probably because the translator wanted to reserve the rhythm of the original sentences. The other reason is that the sentences has very much decoration; adjectives, adverbs, and figures. Maybe these stories are necessary to be read many times to understand!

(Finished reading on Oct.13, 2007)


The more detailed Japanese version of this article is here!

Japanese character(s) (kanji)
* Antoine de Sant-Exupery : サン＝テグジュペリ
* Yakan-Hikou : 夜間飛行
* Nanpou-Yuubin-ki : 南方郵便機