Marina Lewycka

When their recently widowed father announces he plans to remarry, sisters Vera and Nadezhda realise they must put aside a lifetime of feuding in order to save him. His new love is a voluptuous gold-digger from the Ukraine half his age, with a proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, who stops at nothing in her single minded pursuit of the luxury Western lifestyle she dreams of. But the old man, too, is pursuing his eccentric dreams - and writing a history of tractors in Ukrainian. A wise, tender and deeply funny novel about families, the healing of old wounds, the trials and consolations of old age and - really - about the legacy of Europe's history over the last fifty years.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

We are all made of glue

A farmer's indiscretions force a band of illegal migrant workers from different backgrounds to flee their strawberry fields and embark on a haphazard journey across England in search of better lives, an effort marked by an unlikely love affair.

Strawberry Fields

Good, the Bad and the Little Bit Stupid

Nachbarn kommen und gehen. Mr. Sidebottom bleibt. Berthold Sidebottom, Anfang fünfzig, arbeitsloser Schauspieler, lebt mit seiner Mutter Lily in einer Sozialwohnung in London. Als Lily unerwartet stirbt, droht ihm die Kündigung. Was tun? Berthold bittet Lilys Bettnachbarin im Krankenhaus, vorübergehend bei ihm einzuziehen und die Rolle seiner Mutter zu spielen. Die alte Dame willigt erfreut ein - doch Inna ist Ukrainerin, spricht nur rudimentäres Englisch und verliert die komplexen Details des Wohnungskomplotts allzu leicht aus dem Blick.

Lubetkins Erbe, oder, Von einem, der nicht auszog : Roman

Korotka istorii︠a︡ traktoriv po-ukraïnsʹky

Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamourous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.' Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their UmigrU engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget . . .

Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

The bestselling author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is back with an 'effervescent comedy' (The New Yorker) The follow up to her hugely popular first novel presents a Canterbury Tales-inspired picaresque that is also a biting satire of economic exploitation. When a ragtag international crew of migrant workers is forced to flee the strawberry fields they have been working in, they set off across England looking for employment. Displaying the same sense of compassion, social outrage, and gift for hilarity that she showed in A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka chronicles their bumpy road trip with a tender affection for her downtrodden characters and their search for a taste of the good life.

Marina Lewycka

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