A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian （Marina Lewycka）

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was bestselling author Marina Lewycka's debut novel which has sold over one million copies worldwide. The novel won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize at the Hay literary festival. 
 
The novel describes the reactions of two daughters when their widowed, 84-year-old father Nikolai marries a highly sexual and much younger Ukrainian immigrant, Valentina. Concerned about Valentina's motives, Nadezhda and Vera are drawn back into contact with each other after a long period of estrangement. They find themselves united against a common enemy in Valentina, whose grasping, manipulative behaviour escalates until the daughters finally succeed in obtaining a divorce for their father.
 
Nikolai, a former engineer who emigrated to Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War, is writing a history of tractors in Ukrainian, translated extracts from which appear throughout the novel. In the process of sorting out Nikolai's marital entanglements, Nadezhda also uncovers secrets from her family's history and learns about their experiences during the Ukrainian famine and Stalin's purges.
 
Marina Lewycka (1946-) is a British novelist of Ukrainian origin, currently living in Sheffield, England. Lewycka was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany after World War II. Her family then moved to England where she now lives. She was educated at Keele University and works as a lecturer in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University.