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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
Two Caravans is the hilarious and engaging second novel from bestselling author Marina Lewycka. A field of strawberries in Kent... And sitting in it are two caravans - one for the men and one for the women. The residents are from all over: miner's son Andriy is from the old Ukraine, while sexy young Irina is from the new: they each other warily. There are the Poles, Tomasz and Yola; two Chinese girls; and Emauel from Malawi. They're all here to pick strawberries in England's green and pleasant land. But these days England's not so pleasant for immigrants. Not with Russian gangster-wannabes like Vulk, who's taken a shine to Irina and thinks kidnapping is a wooing strategy. And so Andriy - who...
A LAUGH-OUT-LOUD NOVEL FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN After walking out on his wife to shack up with 'Brexit Brenda' next door, George Pantis thinks he's got it made - especially when he wins millions on a Kosovan lottery he barely remembers entering. Unfortunately, he can't access the money because he's forgotten his password. What is he meant to tell all the forceful people who keep appearing at his doorstep desperate to know his mother's maiden name? The situation is shadier than he thinks, and George is need of rescue. But will his dysfunctional family be able to save him, and in the process, can they save each other? ______________________________________________________ 'Lewycka has carved out a reputation for tackling Big Topics with wit and humour' Radio Times 'Warmly funny' Daily Mail 'Her state-of-the-nation novel crackles with zingy one-liners and shrewd humour' Mail on Sunday
We Are All Made of Glue is the wickedly funny third novel from bestselling author Marina Lewycka. Georgie Sinclair's life is coming unstuck. Her husband's left her. Her son's obsessed with the End of the World. And now her elderly neighbour Mrs Shapiro has decided they are related. Or so the hospital informs her when Mrs Shapiro has an accident and names Georgie next of kin. This, however, is not a case of a quick ward visit: Mrs Shapiro has a large rickety house full of stinky cats that needs looking after and that a pair of estate agents seem intent on swindling from her. Plus there are the 'Uselesses' trying to repair it (uselessly). Then there's social worker who wants to put her in a nu...
'Lively . . . a joy to read' - The Times *Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize* The bestselling author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is back in this hilarious, farcical, tender novel of modern issues and manners. North London in the twenty-first century: a place where a son will swiftly adopt an old lady and take her home from hospital to impersonate his dear departed mother, rather than lose the council flat. A time of golden job opportunities, though you might have to dress up as a coffee bean or work as an intern at an undertaker or put up with champagne and posh French dinners while your boss hits on you. A place rich in language - whether it's Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Swahili or buxom housing officers talking managementese. A place where husbands go absent without leave and councillors sacrifice cherry orchards at the altar of new builds. 'Laugh-out loud' Daily Express 'Insightful, witty and engaging, painting a picture of modern Britain that will be at once recognizable and enlightening' Stylist 'Entertaining and timely' Evening Standard
Set half in Doncaster, half in London, this is a very funny riff on modern values, featuring hamsters, cockroaches, poodles, a chicken and multiplying rabbits, told by Marina Lewycka in her unique and brilliant combination of irony, farce and wit.
THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writi...
Two unaccompanied children travel across the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat that has been designed to only make it halfway across… A 63-year-old man is woken one morning by border officers ‘acting on a tip-off’ and, despite having paid taxes for 28 years, is suddenly cast into the detention system with no obvious means of escape… An orphan whose entire life has been spent in slavery – first on a Ghanaian farm, then as a victim of trafficking – writes to the Home Office for help, only to be rewarded with a jail sentence and indefinite detention… These are not fictions. Nor are they testimonies from some distant, brutal past, but the frighteningly common experiences of Euro...
A beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field and around their two caravans a group of strawberry pickers celebrates a birthday. But what lies behind the buy-one-get-one-free offers at your supermarket and who picks our strawberries? The Ukrainians: Irina, just off the coach from Kiev, and Andriy, the miner's son from the other Ukraine; the Poles: Tomasz and Yola; two Chinese girls; Emanuel, the round-eyed eighteen-year-old from Malawi. And although he can't pick strawberries, there's also the Dog . . . Hilarious, gritty, moving and slapstick, Two Caravans has all the ingredients that made A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian so successful.
Hello. And pleasure to meet you. My name Yevgeny. Yevgeny, yes. But my friends they call me Zhenya. Now, where was I born? In Vitebsk. In the looking glass world of the old Soviet reality, the future is certain. But the past is unpredictable and the truth a negotiable commodity. Into this changeable environment comes young Zhenya Gorevich, struggling to embrace a supposed Communist utopia. When his mother confesses the unlikely secret of his parentage, he determines to escape Russia and find his long-lost father. On a pillock’s progress, as trying as anything endured by Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin, the hapless Gorevich journeys from his dreary home town of Vitebsk to Moscow and, eventually, to swinging London and the 1966 World Cup in an effort to reclaim his birthright. Culminating with the 1966 World Cup in England, Martin Sixsmith delightfully combines the riotous tradition of Russian satire with his own wry humour in the story of one man’s circuitous journey through life.