India, May 17 -- It's not a winning title. And as it happens, Small Boat is a small book too. Just 160 pages. Three sections. Vincent Delecroix's International Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is a work of fiction from start to finish. But it stems from a real-life incident on a chilly night in November 2021, when an inflatable boat, en route from France to the United Kingdom, capsized in the Channel, whilst still in French territorial waters near Calais and Dunkirk. Thirty migrants were on board; they sent out numerous calls for help. But the French authorities wrongly told them they were in British waters, and needed to direct their SOS calls to the UK. Hours passed as coastguard authorities of the two nations argued over who was responsible. By the time rescue vessels and aircraft arrived, all but two of the passengers had either drowned or died of exposure, including a pregnant woman and three children. It is the single largest loss of life in the English Channel since the International Organisation for Migration began collecting data in 2014. Here's where Vincent Delecroix's story begins. Small Boat is a fictional account of the event, narrated by the woman coastguard officer who took the calls on the French side. Accused of failing in her duty, and now facing an inquiry, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Her part-internal monologue, part-uncomfortable conversation makes up the thorny first section. This isn't a neat little Netflix re-enactment about What Happened That Night. Phone records show that among the woman's many exchanges with the freezing migrants, were the statements: "I didn't ask you to leave," and "You will not be saved". In addition, the investigating police officer also happens to look like the woman, perhaps 10 years older. It's a genius device - the investigator serves as both the mirror and the conscience, while the coastguard officer may well be a synecdoche for France. The woman insists that she's neutral, that she's trained to view the life of a migrant as no more or less valuable than that of a stranded heir after a party on a yacht. She rationalises that being efficient is more useful than being empathetic in rescue operations. But it is callous insensitivity hiding behind indifference. The notion that humans making treacherous crossings to safer shores are "so caught up with not wanting to die", irritates her. Her "I didn't ask you to leave," is not what sank the boat. But Delecroix's narrator has no remorse. She is haunted not by corpses, but her own recording playing over the evening news. It's the inspector who often struggles to find the right words to say. The French-to-English translation is elegant. At one point the woman admits, "I failed to make the distinction when I should have. And when I shouldn't have, I made the distinction". But the testimony is, at best, a thought experiment, philosophising an ethical dilemma that shouldn't be a dilemma at all. There's a brief Section II, a sharp, quiet description of the drowning, for anyone who needs reminding of what migrants risk for a chance at a hard life in a safer country. Small Boat closes with a look at other players in the story: the coast guard's far-right ex, Eric, their young daughter Lea, and Julien, the cynical but complacent colleague who was on duty that night too. It's a reminder of the banality of evil. Like soldiers at Auschwitz who claimed to be just doing their jobs. Like the Delhi Police who let a corpse lie on a road for 14 hours in 2010 while they argued about jurisdiction. Like the officials at UP's Government Railway Police and Bareilly Police Station after a man had been run over by a train in 2015 - they squabbled for so long over who should collect the body that by the time they picked it up, another 16 trains had run over it. Delecroix's book is not about the culpability of one woman; it is instead about the idea that we are all culpable. The author is a philosopher. Expect some spiralling passages about the difference between presuming innocence and proving it. But look past them too. Saving lives is not that complicated....