With an introduction by André Gide, the novel of only 23 short chapters was published by Éditions Gallimard in 1931 and was awarded the Prix Femina for that year.

In 1932 it was translated into English by Stuart Gilbert as Night Flight and was made a Book of the Month Club choice in the United States.

[6] In 2014 the Korean composer Hyukjin Shin (b.1976) wrote another response to the novel in a chamber piece for violin, clarinet, cello, and piano, in this case trying to capture the pilot Fabien's final vision as he flew above the clouds.

The novel's episodic structure is built about his work at the Buenos Aires office and the final hours of the pilot Fabien on the Patagonia run.

Below him still the storm was fashioning another world, thridded with squalls and cloudbursts and lightnings, but turning to the stars a face of crystal snow.

Now all grew luminous, his hands, his clothes, the wings, and Fabien thought that he was in a limbo of strange magic; for the light did not come down from the stars but welled up from below, from all that snowy whiteness.A major theme of the novel is whether doing what is necessary to meet a long-term goal is more important than an individual's life.

“It is a matter of life and death for us; for the lead we gain by day on ships and railways is lost at night.” He therefore puts his pilots at risk to establish its commercial viability, but it is a sacrifice that they too readily accept.