Small Boat
By VINCENT DELECROIX
Translated by HELEN STEVENSON
Read live on stage by a very special guest.
In November 2021, a dinghy carrying migrants capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people.
Small Boat is a fictional imagining of that event told by the coast guard who failed to do enough to help them.
Through this searing and unflinching monologue she examines her own conscience and the conscience of a nation.
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, all but two of the migrants had died.
The narrator of Delecroix’s fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies?
A shocking, moral tale of our times, Small Boat reminds us of the power of fiction to illuminate our darkest crimes.
WINNER of ENGLISH PEN AWARD.
Shortlisted for THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2025.
