Small Boat

In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel, and 27 of the people on board died. This novel is a fictional account of how and why it happened. The migrants called for help many times, but the French authorities wrongly told them they were in British waters and that they needed to contact the British authorities. By the time rescue vessels reached the scene, only two of the migrants had survived.

The narrator is the woman who took those calls. She stands accused of failing in her duty, yet she refuses to accept that she should bear more responsibility than anyone else. Why should she be held more to blame than the sea, the war, or the crises that lie behind such tragedies?

Vincent Delecroix presents a moral tale about the present day, using fiction to shed light on some of our darkest failures.