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Lily Hyde

As a child

The house where I grew up had solar panels that provided enough hot water for one bath per year, a model railway running under a blue starry ceiling in the attic, a grinder in the kitchen to grind bread flour, and a shed for a very grumpy goat called Felicity. For some reason, I still felt the need to make things up. I wrote some fairy stories when I was about six, and drew all the heroines wearing Russian headdresses because my favourite book was of Russian fairytales. One story was about a girl called Lily. She died tragically thanks to a wicked uncle, but from her grave a beauteous lily flower bloomed… Happily, I later made up a more eventful life for Lily.

As an adult

It’s the fault of those Russian fairytales. After university I left England for the Czech Republic, which was on the way to Russia but didn’t require a visa. From Prague I went a step nearer, to Ukraine. I travelled by train, and when we stopped on the border for hours while the railway carriages were hoisted into the air and the wheels changed to fit the wider track, I knew I was entering a different world... Later I carried on, into Russia, across Siberia to Sakhalin and Kamchatka. I discovered that the fairytales aren’t always true, but the reality is even stranger and more magical.

As an artist

I’m inspired by places – Kiev in Riding Icarus, Crimea in Dream Land; next are books about Kamchatka and Siberia. I also love listening to people’s stories, trying to understand what they dream about, what makes them tick; wondering what our lives would be like if I’d been born in their place and they'd been born in mine.

Things you didn't know about Lily Hyde

  1. I’m named after my great-aunt Lily, who drank pink gin and drove a wonderfully stylish Alvis car (although not at the same time).
  2. My grandmother was a novelist published in the 1940s.
  3. My father lived in Africa as a child, in the house previously owned by Danish author Karen Blixen.
  4. I love writing and travel (although also not at the same time).
  5. I write best when I’m supposed to be doing something else.
  6. When I get stuck writing, I play the piano.
  7. Or else daydream about my alternative career running an all-night pudding shop in Osaka.
  8. Speaking of which, my favourite food is my mum’s trifle, preferably for breakfast.
  9. But since on my travels I’ve breakfasted on salty tea with rancid butter, caviar fresh from the fish, unmentionable bits of sheep and salted pig fat, I am now one of the world’s least fussy eaters.

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