A novel by the author of the bestselling The Librarian of Auschwitz about the fascinating adventures of three friends who were at the birth of civil aviation
France, 1920s. Latécoere, the predecessor of today's Air France, recruits only the most courageous and skilled pilots. Among those selected are Jean Mermoz, Henri Guillaumet and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, three "wonderful men in flying machines" who will go down in the history of civil aviation as pioneers of previously unexplored air routes. No distance is long enough for them, no mountain peak high enough.
Beyond the passion to fly, there is only the responsibility and professional honour to deliver letters on board aircraft on time and in all circumstances to the hands of the addressees, across continents and oceans on an ever-shrinking world map. But when they land and rest their feet on solid ground, they come face to face again with a reality whose twists, turns and pitfalls are much harder to cope with than the turbulence high in the clouds.
To the open sky, the author's meticulously documented novel, which combines the adventure and exoticism of a travelogue with elements of a historical and biographical novel in a continuous flow of episodes, tells of the fascinating and now half-forgotten adventures of discovery of three inseparable friends, who were at the birth of civil aviation, and is also a literary tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of the unforgettable The Little Prince, writer and humanist, who - despite a century of world wars - managed to see and perceive life through the eyes of a child until his tragic death in the waters of the Mediterranean.
