Marina Lewycka is a British author whose works often delve into the intricacies of family relationships and cultural clashes. Her writing is characterized by a witty observation of human nature, frequently weaving humor with a profound understanding of human suffering. Lewycka explores themes of identity, migration, and the search for belonging, as her characters navigate between different worlds and traditions. Her aim is to celebrate the resilience of the human spirit and the complex bonds that connect us all.
From bonding to bondage, from B&Q to Belarus, along with seven smelly cats, three useless handymen, two slimy estate agents, social workers, and a bonker lady, this is the story of a very unlikely friendship.
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.
Marcus and Doro were part of a commune from the late 1960s until the early 1990s: lentils, free love, spliffs, radical politics, cheesecloth blouses, sex, housework and cooking rotas, crochet, allotments. Their children have grown up differently from them: primary school teacher Clara craves order and clean bathrooms ; son Serge is pretending he is still doing a doctorate at Cambridge ; while third child Oolie Anna, who has Downs Syndrome, is desperate to escape home and live on her own. Once the truth starts breaking through, who knows what further secrets will be revealed about any of them? Risible tale of modern values, featuring hamsters, cockroaches, poodles, a chicken and multiplying rabbits.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was bestselling author Marina Lewycka's bestselling debut novel which has sold over one million copies worldwide. Lewycka tells the side-splittingly funny story of two feuding sisters, Vera and Nadezhda, who join forces against their father's new, gold-digging girlfriend. 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 . . . .
Hilarious new novel from the bestselling author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian . 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. Marina Lewycka is back in this hilarious, farcical, tender novel of modern issues and manners.
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?
Als Nadias verwitweter Vater ihr mitteilt, dass er wieder heiraten will, löst er eine gewaltige Familienkrise aus. Sein neuer Schatz ist eine üppige Blondine, aus der Ukraine wie er auch, mit einer Vorliebe für grüne Satinunterwäsche, Fertiggerichte und hochtechnisierte Kücheneinrichtungen. Nadia ist sofort klar, dass diese Frau vor nichts haltmachen wird, um ihre ehrgeizigen Träume zu verwirklichen … (4 CDs, Laufzeit: 4h 40)
Co může mít společného Irina, mladá, krásná a vzdělaná Ukrajinka plná ideálů, Andrij, bývalý horník, sotva dospělý Malawijec Emanuel, polská ortodoxní katolička Jola, její praktická teta Marta, dvě čínské dívky a pes jménem Pes? Zdánlivě nic, snad jen místo, kde se potkávají. Na kraji jahodového pole uprostřed britského Kentu stojí dva karavany, jeden určený pro ženské sběračky jahod, druhý pro muže. Pojí je několik věcí: touha vydělat si a zajistit si tak lepší život, než jaký jim nabízí jejich rodné země a sny, naděje, touha.