In March 1941 a converted cargo ship, the Paul-Lemerle, left Marseille on a voyage to the Caribbean, fleeing Vichy France and the devastation of the war. The ship was filled with immigrants from the east, exiled Spanish Republicans, Jews and decadent artists. Among them were Claude Lévi-Strauss, the painter Wifredo Lam, the writers Anna Seghers and André Breton, and the Russian revolutionary Victor Serge. In Outrageous Horizon Adrien Bosc takes us from Marseille to Casablanca, then on to Martinique and New York, as he tells a story of migration, cultural crisis and the intellectual cost of the rise of fascism. Translated by Frank Wynne.
‘A beautiful book about the best minds of a generation and the devastation of war – an outrageous voyage from the past that speaks eloquently to our present.’ Deborah Levy
