Shakespeare’s Runaway

A flamboyant, oddly-dressed man arrives in Bath city centre and attempts to flog some dodgy stolen tat to a bewildered crowd. William Shakespeare's loveable, cheeky comic rogue street-peddler and musician Autolycus, from The Winter's Tale, has turned up in the twenty-first century as a migrant refugee from four centuries earlier. Outrageously having escaped from Shakespeare's play and gone on the run, he's now constantly pursued and persecuted by dark and racist forces of the state.

Derekk Ross's debut novella reimagines Autolycus as a comically disrespectful critic of the playwright who created him, as he struggles to fathom his own identity and reclaim his autonomy.

Part adventure, part embryonic romance, part cautionary tale, Shakespeare's Runaway is a tragicomic rollercoaster ride - a tale of prejudice, rebellion and the quest for freedom. And in an increasingly migrant-hostile world it is also a timely reminder that refugees are people too.