Home 5 News 5 PRH Secures Tsubaki Stationery Store

PRH Secures Tsubaki Stationery Store

by | Jan 16, 2025 | News

The trend towards ‘healing lit’ or ‘quiet lit’ continues with Hutchinson Heinemann, part of PRH, winning a seven-way auction in the UK for Tsubaki Stationery Store, a literary novel by one of Japan’s best-known writers Ito Ogawa.

 

Publishing director Ailah Ahmed acquired world English-language rights from Bruno Onuki Reynell and Li Kangqin at New River Literary in London on behalf of Kohei Hattori at The English Agency in Japan. Maya Ziv at Dutton, Penguin Random House US, acquired North American rights.

 

Tsubaki Stationery Store tells the story of 25-year-old Hatoko who, having recently returned to Kamakura, where she has inherited a small stationery store. She becomes a public scribe: she is commissioned to write letters, in calligraphy, to heal broken friendships and old romances.

 

Ahmed said: “I completely fell in love with Tsubaki Stationery Store and Hatoko and her exit from busy city life to slow mornings in her grandmother’s stationery store. There is a beautiful lesson in this novel about slowing down to savour the world and in repairing broken bonds rather than throwing relationships away. It is a transformative and healing classic of Japanese literature.”

 

Reynell said: “Tsubaki Stationary Store has cemented its status as an enduring favourite among Japanese readers. It is wonderful that this book about the reconciliatory and transformative power of the written word will now be brought to English-language readers in the excellent hands of Ailah and her team.”

 

So why is ‘healing fiction’ so popular.  Katharine Morris of John Murray, who won a five-way auction Yuta Takahashi’s series The Chibineko Kitchen last year, told The Bookseller: “It’s been a stressful time and it seems like everyone is feeling like things are falling apart. The ripples from the pandemic are still affecting people and how much they have been able to travel in the last four or five years, the opportunities they’ve had, the cost of living crisis, the climate disaster, crises around the world and the horrendous situation in Palestine, there’s just a lot of difficult things to contend with.

 

“For those reading fiction, they want something reassuring and accessible and not exhausting. The concept of burn-out has become so dominant in the last year or two [and] many people are looking for an antidote.”  

 

 

Recent News

18Feb
Ian Chapman to Step Down as S&S UK CEO in May

Ian Chapman to Step Down as S&S UK CEO in May

After 25 years at Simon & Schuster, Ian Chapman, who serves as CEO and publisher of Simon & Schuster UK & International, will depart in May.   Chapman, who became CEO in 2013, has led publishing, editorial, marketing, and sales operations in the UK, Australia and India. His title-marked years were majorly growthy; for 2022 and 2023, Simon […]

18Feb
IPA Condemns Attack on Publisher at Bangladesh Book Fair

IPA Condemns Attack on Publisher at Bangladesh Book Fair

The International Publishers Association (IPA) has condemned an attack on publisher Sabyasachi’s stand at the Amar Ekushey book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  Extremists were protesting at the presence of books by author Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer who is known for her work on women’s oppression and criticism of religion.  Some of her books are […]

18Feb
AI and Copyright: Key Takeaways from the AI Action Summit

AI and Copyright: Key Takeaways from the AI Action Summit

Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains the issue of the moment.  The former chief executive of Google, Erich Smidt proposes a balance between government oversight of AI development and over-regulation of the sector.   He told the BBC: “The truth is that AI and the future is largely going to be built by private compaanies.  It’s really […]

Related Posts

IPA Condemns Attack on Publisher at Bangladesh Book Fair

IPA Condemns Attack on Publisher at Bangladesh Book Fair

The International Publishers Association (IPA) has condemned an attack on publisher Sabyasachi's stand at the Amar Ekushey book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  Extremists were protesting at the presence of books by author Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer who is...

AI and Copyright: Key Takeaways from the AI Action Summit

AI and Copyright: Key Takeaways from the AI Action Summit

Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains the issue of the moment.  The former chief executive of Google, Erich Smidt proposes a balance between government oversight of AI development and over-regulation of the sector.   He told the BBC: “The truth is that AI and the...

International Interest in Newly Discovered Joan Didion Manuscript

International Interest in Newly Discovered Joan Didion Manuscript

There is strong international interest in a new book by the celebrated American writer and journalist Joan Didion who died in 2021.  Entitled Notes to John, the manuscript was discovered in a portable filing cabinet next to her desk after her death.  The book is a...

Previous Next
Close
Test Caption
Test Description goes like this

Pin It on Pinterest