17,82€
On March 24, 1941, the ship “Capitaine-Paul-Lemerle” sailed from Marseille to America with the first stop in Martinique. The ship is resorted to by the unfortunate people of Vichy France: Spanish Democrats, Jews, stateless people. Scholars and artists, such as Claude Levy-Strauss, Andre Breton, Vifredo Lahm, Victor Serge, Anna Zegers, and others. The book vividly narrates what happens during the transatlantic voyage and their arrival and stay in Martinique.
On March 24, 1941, the ship “Capitaine-Paul-Lemerle” sailed from Marseille to America with the first stop in Martinique. Passengers are outcasts of all kinds and nationalities: German communists, persecuted Jews, “stateless” Spaniards who fought against Franco. Businessmen with unclear activities and scholars and artists who leave Vichy France, such as Claude Levy-Strauss, Andre Breton, Vifredo Lahm, Victor Serge, Anna Zegers, and others.
The trip will take almost a month. During it, everyday life includes petty rivalries and mutual suspicions and moments of cheerful mood and celebration, such as when the ship crosses Ecuador’s line. What happens during the transatlantic voyage and the arrival and stay in Martinique is described in the novel by Adrien Bosc with sharpness, penetrating look, and humor, despite these times’ dramatic events.
Bosc’s novel seeks to answer the fundamental question that haunts the human mind after Odysseus, Aeneas, and Abraham: personal search, exile, adventure? Why and by what inner impulse does a man move away from his land? And most importantly: what happens next…?
Bosc knows how to handle speech like Balzac in his descriptions. Captain turns into a Human comedy. At the same time, it is a treatise full of wisdom: “Treasure is never at the end of the world,” he concludes, “but at the end of the road.”
In 1941, the ship “Capitaine-Paul-Lemerle” is resorted by Vichy France’s refugees: Spanish Democrats, Jews, stateless people. The book tells the story of these exiles who are lost between Europe and America. Suspended lives – the lives of Victor Serge, Wilfredo Lahm, Claude Levy-Strauss, and many others. Common destinies, in solidarity with each other, despite the differences in social class, language, values. Instead of the emotional engagement that the situation he describes could cause, Bosc favors the precision, the discretion, the subtlety, in the end, we always show towards those we admire.
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Adrien Bosc
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