A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

A Novel By Marina Lewycka Published by Penguin Books March 2006;$14.00US/$20.00CAN; 0-14-303674-2 An International Bestseller Shortlisted for the Orange Prize When an elderly and newly widowed Ukrainian immigrant declares his intention to remarry, his intended turns out to be a voluptuous gold digger from the old country with a proclivity for green satin underwear and an insatiable appetite for the good life of the West. And so his children Vera and Nadezhda must set aside years of bitter rivalry to rescue their annoyingly frisky father who (when he is not pursuing Valentina) is busily writing a grand history of the tractor and its role in human progress. As the intrigues multiply and secrets spill out, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian takes in love and suffering, family and ethnicity, sibling rivalry and the joys of growing old disgracefully. Author Marina Lewycka was born of Ukrainian parents in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, at the end of the war and grew up in England. She teaches at Sheffield Hallam University and is the author of six books on aspects of elder care. She is married with a grown-up daughter and lives in Sheffield.