Vincent Delecroix is a French philosopher and writer. A graduate of the École normale supérieure, and agrégé of philosophy, he teaches at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. Delecroix received the Prix Valery Larbaud in 2007 for his novel Ce qui est perdu (published in 2006) and the Grand prix de littérature de l’Académie française after he published Tombeau d’Achille (in 2008). Small Boat is the first of his novels to be translated into English.

Helen Stevenson studied Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, 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.