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
- 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).
- My grandmother was a novelist published in the 1940s.
- My father lived in Africa as a child, in the house previously owned by Danish author Karen Blixen.
- I love writing and travel (although also not at the same time).
- I write best when I’m supposed to be doing something else.
- When I get stuck writing, I play the piano.
- Or else daydream about my alternative career running an all-night pudding shop in Osaka.
- Speaking of which, my favourite food is my mum’s trifle, preferably for breakfast.
- 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.
-