A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian [Hardcover]

Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and shortlisted for The Orange Prize for Fiction 2005. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other - and they have their reasons. But now they find they'd better learn how to get along, because since their mother's death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. If Nadazhda and Vera don't stop her, no one will. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat - Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs when it comes to ruthlessness. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, the one that explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different. In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.

"Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a
glamorous blonde Ukranian 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 sludge of sloughed-off
memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Praise for A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN: 'Outstanding' Daily Mail

'Extremely funny' The Times

'Nothing short of amazing' Daily Express --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Marina Lewycka lives in Sheffield. She was born in 1946 in a refugee camp in Germany, the daughter of a couple who were brought from the Ukraine as forced laborers by the Nazis; her family emigrated to England shortly thereafter