Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry
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Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry (April 10, 1901 - 1979) was a Salvadoran-French writer and artist, and the wife of the more famous writer and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupéry.
Born Consuelo Suncin Sandoval Zeceña in a small village in El Salvador to wealthy landowners, she studied abroad in San Francisco, in Mexico City, and in France. While in France, she met and later married Enrique Gomez Carillo, a Guatemalan diplomat and journalist. Following his death in 1927, she moved to and took up residence in Buenos Aires.
In 1931, she met and married Saint-Exupéry and moved back to France with him. Their marriage was a turbulent one, as he was constantly away on flying missions and adventures and had numerous extramarital affairs.
Following the disappearance of her husband in 1944, she wrote a memoirs of their life together called The Tale of the Rose. These memoirs were never published in her lifetime, as she sealed them away in a trunk in her home. She died in France in 1979 and is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The Tale of the Rose and her various paintings and writings were found and published in 1999, and the memoirs became a major bestseller in France.
Her relationship with her husband was portrayed by Bruno Ganz and Miranda Richardson in the movie Saint-Ex: The Story Teller.
[edit] Reference in The Little Prince
Despite their tumultuous union, Antoine kept Consuelo close to his heart. She is a major character in The Little Prince as his "flower", the "rose" on his planet that he protects under a glass cover. His infidelity and doubts about his marriage are symbolised by the field of flowers he encounters during his visit to Earth. It is the fox character that tells him that his rose is unique and special, because she is the one that he loves.
