Join host David Hartmann and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix; a selection by our book club member Gene Homel. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.

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.

Vincent Delecroix’s acclaimed 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. What unfolds is a gripping, thought-provoking examination of the darkest threat to our humanity.

Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026

Times: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific. For those in Europe the time is 12:30AM in London on September 25.

Location: Zoom Video Conference

Cost: Free

Reviews

"A gut-punch of a novel…Small Boat explores the power of the individual and asks us to consider the havoc we may cause others, the extent to which our complacency makes us complicit – and whether we could all do better.” —The 2025 Booker judges on Small Boat

"A brutally fearless exploration of migration and our complicity in the face of tragedy. Not only does this thorny, firecracker of a novel ask large, provocative questions about the plight of migrants, it is expertly crafted to take every reader beyond the headlines and sensationalism that plague one of the defining human rights issues of our time. Small Boat is political fiction at its absolute best." —Ruben Reyes

Photo Credit: Harper Collins, Promotional Material, Public Domain