SG Fiction: Knock Knock

Lily Hyde on the complexity of life under Russian occupation

Our SG Fiction newsletter features an original short story from a different author around the world. It’s part of our set of expanded offerings. At least once a month, you’ll receive an original short story from a different part of the world, introduced by a member of our fiction advisory board. Today’s selection is by Lily Hyde presented by Stranger’s Guide Editor in Chief, Kira Brunner Don.

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Continuing with our Ukraine series this month our fiction newsletter is excerpted from Lily Hyde's extraordinary forthcoming book. Hyde is a British journalist based in Ukraine. Hyde's upcoming book, which is not yet titled, looks at Crimea after its annexation by Russia and is based on Hyde’s extensive research interviewing Crimean Tatars, a largely Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the region. Hyde has documented stories from diverse perspectives: activists who oppose the Russian occupation and those who have collaborated with it, Ukrainian servicemen who stayed in Crimea after the invasion and Crimeans sentenced to prison by Russian forces. The book uses fiction, essays and creative nonfiction to offer a deeply personal view of human relations and acts of heroism under extreme political stress.

In the following fictional story “Knock Knock,” we meet several Crimean Tatar families navigating life under occupation. Hyde explores the ways that political and military circumstances seep into even the most intimate friendships.

—Kira Brunner Don, Editor in Chief 

Photograph by Elena Subach.

Knock Knock

By Lily Hyde