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Vincent Delecroix

Biography

Vincent Delecroix

Vincent Delecroix is a French philosopher and writer. A graduate of the École normale supérieure, and agrégé of philosophy, he teaches at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. Delecroix received the Prix Valery Larbaud in 2007 for his novel CE QUI EST PERDU (published in 2006) and the Grand prix de littérature de l’Académie française after he published TOMBEAU D'ACHILLE (in 2008). SMALL BOAT is the first of his novels to be translated into English.

Vincent Delecroix

Books by Vincent Delecroix

Small Boat
written by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson - Fiction

In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK capsized in the English Channel, causing the deaths of 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, nearly three hours later, all but two of the migrants had died, the worst single loss of life ever to occur in the Channel. SMALL BOAT is a fictional first-person account of the French navy officer who took the migrants’ calls --- and her attempts to justify the indefensible. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster, than the crises behind these tragedies.