Tinder Press snaps up Naomi Ishiguro's debut short story collection

Tinder Press has snapped up the “exuberantly original” debut short story collection from Naomi Ishiguro.

Mary-Anne Harrington acquired British Commonwealth rights from Peter Straus at RCW for Escape Routes, which will be published in February 2020.

Ishiguro, daughter of Nobel-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, worked for two years at Mr B’s Emporium in Bath and studied for a Masters in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Tinder Press said the book tapped into fairytales and focused on characters trapped by their own limitations or others’ expectations.

Ishiguro explained: “These stories really started from talking to customers every day at Mr B’s. I began to see how books become our ‘escape routes’ out of the ordinary world – out of drudgery, mundanity, out of set ways of thinking and our own emotional limitations. This isn’t a book about books, but it’s definitely something I wrote for all the readers I talked to, who inspired me in showing me just how magical and important storytelling’s flights of imagination and empathy can be.”

Harrington added: “What impressed me particularly about Escape Routes was the way these wonderfully varied stories resonate together as a collection. There’s something delightfully fresh and contemporary about Naomi’s magical take on the world, like a kind of bittersweet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m incredibly excited to be launching her career as a writer here at Tinder Press.”