Used Book – Les Eaux territoriales, Eugène Nicole

In 1992, following a long-standing dispute between France and Canada regarding the delimitation of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon's territorial waters, an international arbitration tribunal sitting in New York delivered a verdict that restricted the traditional fishing rights and the "continental shelf" of the French archipelago. It was only granted a narrow strip of sea (nicknamed the "stovepipe") which endangered its survival.

This threat looms from the very beginning of the book in July 1988 when the author and narrator, returning to Saint-Pierre for his father's funeral, brought with him the first volume of L'Œuvre des mers which was to be published in mainland France a few weeks later.

Encompassing two other stays in the archipelago (in 1995 for the filming of a movie and in 2005 for the funeral of his younger brother) as well as a posthumous diary written by Monsieur, the former schoolteacher who fancied himself Jacques Cartier, Les Eaux territoriales extends L'Œuvre des mers like a Supplement.

Chronologically grafted onto the previous volumes, but forming a whole in itself, Les Eaux territoriales incorporates into the narrative episodes related to the reception of L'Œuvre des mers and its genesis, which has become a fertile layer of memories. Literary allusions proliferate, which the narrator seems to use as a shield in the territory of his childhood, which he recognizes less and less.

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