A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Penguin Essentials)

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is bestselling author Marina Lewycka's hilarious and award winning debut novel, now available as a Penguin Essential for the first time.

'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. 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 aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré 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 . . .

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

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

'Delightful, funny, touching' Spectator

O scurta istorie a tractoarelor in limba ucraineana este romanul de debut, hilarant si premiat al autorului Marina Lewycka, disponibil acum ca Penguin Essential pentru prima data. „La doi ani dupa moartea mamei mele, tatal meu s-a indragostit de o divortata ucraineana blonda, plina de farmec.