An extract from Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson
November 2021: an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK capsizes in the Channel, causing the deaths of 27 people on board. How and why did it happen?
Helen Stevenson
Helen Stevenson studied Modern languages at Oxford University, and has been translating literary texts from French to English for 25 years
Her translations include Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2017), The Missing Piece by Antoine Bello and My Phantom Husband by Marie Darrieussecq. She is also a writer of novels including Mad Elaine and Love Like Salt; A Memoir. Her English-language translation of Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025.
Stevenson spent much of her adult life, prior to Brexit, in France, in Ceret (Pyrenees Orientales) and Cajarc (Lot). She now lives in Somerset.
A gut-punch of a novel that asks: could we all do better?
— The 2025 judges on Small Boat
All nominated books
November 2021: an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK capsizes in the Channel, causing the deaths of 27 people on board. How and why did it happen?
Translated by Helen Stevenson
Alain Mabanckou’s poetic carnival of a novel chronicles a riotous journey through the Pointe-Noire underworld in late 20th century Congo-Brazzaville. Translated by Helen Stevenson.
Translated by Helen Stevenson