Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

About the book

THE AWARD-WINNING, MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER

A hilarious, lively, moving and compassionate debut about one Ukrainian-British family's tumultuous relationship and the history they never knew.

'Delightful, funny, touching' Spectator

*****

"As Romeo and Juliet found to their cost, marriage is never just about two people falling in love, it is about families."

Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their widowed, tractor-obsessed Ukrainian father from the voluptuous, wealth-obsessed Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she outmanoeuvres the sisters at every turn.

But their campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of European and Ukrainian history, and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget . . .

*****

'Hugely enjoyable . . . yields a golden harvest of family truths' Daily Telegraph

'Captures the peculiar flavour of Eastern European immigrant life . . . a very rich mixture indeed' Daily Express

'It's rare to find a first novel that gets so much right . . . Lewycka is a seriously talented comic writer' Time Out