IN CAFES outside Istanbul University, students pore over a glossy leaflet. It is not one of the many political pamphlets being distributed ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24th; inside are not campaign promises, but stories of fantasy fiction set in supernatural or imaginary worlds.

Since the attempted military coup in July 2016, the suppression of freedom of expression has swept through Turkey’s universities. Nearly 5,000 academics were dismissed; books, many written by prominent political journalists, were confiscated. At Istanbul University, common areas have been closed, political gatherings are forbidden and students are obliged to attend classes in shifts to reduce mingling. There was a temporary ban on students entering faculty buildings other than their own. In April a bill submitted to parliament proposed splitting up the university. One professor called it an attempt at control through a “divide and rule policy”.

In this difficult climate, speculative fiction has thrived as students turn to magical worlds to understand the grimness of the real one. A hundred books in the genre are being published in the country each year. Fantasy Fiction clubs continue to grow as students gather together to wage good against evil in unfettered realms. Istanbul University Science Fiction and Fantasy Club (BKFK), resurrected in the autumn of 2016, now claims more than 150 members. Fantasy has so far avoided the censors’ displeasure, though two men were indicted for “publicly denigrating” president Recep Tayyip Erdogan by likening him to Gollum, a character in “The Lord of the Rings” (one has since been acquitted).

“Despite what the name suggests, this genre is very interconnected with life,” writes Asli, the editor of Siginak, a fantasy-fiction magazine run by students (throughout this piece we refer to students only by their first names in the interests of their safety). In her story, titled “R-09 and Pluto”, two artificially intelligent robots contemplate the limits of their brains. Humans, the bots agree, are afraid of their creation’s potential power, so rules are designed to limit the use of their full intellect and to keep them from questioning authority. What could happen, one bot suggests, if they broke those rules and freed their minds?

Like her android heroes, Asli felt limited in Turkey. She didn’t want to leave the country as some students have, but was unsure if she could survive there. “Fear and oppression have affected all of us in our personal lives,” she writes via email. But, instead of sinking into apathy, she began to write her novel. Most books about robots, Asli writes, are really about what it means to be human.

Buket Akgun, an assistant professor of English Literature at Istanbul University, is also worried about apathy setting in on campus. She says that when she complained about students not coming to class or reading the texts, some academics were astonished: “Look at what’s going on in the world, does it matter?” She is assigning fantasy and sci-fi books not only to revive interest in the classroom, but because she believes that there are plenty of lessons to be learned from fictional worlds, particularly regarding power imbalances and the resistance of the common man. She recently set “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, the fifth book in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding series, for a final exam. In it, a nefarious professor arrives at Hogwarts and begins issuing “Educational Decrees” that include the banning of student groups.

Without a space to meet on campus, the BKFK gathers in public places. Often the members play table-top role-playing games such as “Dungeons and Dragons”, where participants work together to accomplish a quest in a fantastic world spun by a head storyteller. Mehmet, who graduated last year, says that playing these fantasy games affected how he vented his “feelings in the real world”. His interest in such stories expresses not just a need to escape: it stems from a need for guidance. He wants to know how heroes handle hard situations and, ultimately, how they overcome them.

“I think the point is that despite all this shit going on, things are still happening in Turkey. The seeds are still growing,” says Elif, who started the original BKFK a decade ago when she was a student. She is watching the niche culture she loved take on a new poignancy. When life gets hard, she says, Turks put their effort into excelling in artistic pursuits. “They see it as a rebellion,” Elif states. “I will change [the world] for the better despite all the hardship.”

Now, changing things for the better means fulfilling a civic duty to vote in the presidential election. On one of the popular websites dedicated to geek culture, a post called “How to play a bad game well” outlines the Turkish voting system. It uses gaming terminology to explain local and general elections, and how to choose candidates. The system is poorly designed, it seems to say, but it’s worse not to play. Indeed, students have a critical role: those under the age of 25 are reported to make up nearly 20% of the electorate. “I mean we love fantasy,” says Mehmet; but the people who don’t think things need to change in Turkey—“these guys are living in a fantasy world.”

Correction (June 26th 2018): An earlier version of this piece stated that “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is the fourth book in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding series. It is the fifth. This has been updated.