Fifty-eight turned out to be Marina Lewycka’s lucky number.
That is the age when this British writer of Ukrainian descent shot to literary fame in 2005 with the publication of her first novel, “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.” Since that propitious debut, Lewycka has published two other bestsellers and is now working on a fourth book.
A child of Ukrainian emigres, Lewycka became one of the leading voices of Britain’s contemporary immigrant experience. Through keen observation and tenacious research, her work delves into hefty issues, but with more than a touch of comedy, say critics, than other authors would allow.
“Tractors” is the story of an elderly widowed man who marries a much younger Ukrainian emigrant, the voluptuous gold-digger Valentina, and his two daughters’ varied reactions to the union. “Two Caravans” explores the lives and exploits of immigrant workers in the strawberry fields of Kent, England. “We Are All Made of Glue” is the story of an estranged middle-aged couple, with Jews and Palestinians searching for a homeland thrown into the mix.
“The madcap world of Marina Lewycka is now familiar to millions of readers as a kind of formula,” noted Amanda Craig in The Independent. “An engagingly quirky narrator takes us on a journey in which serious themes such as family quarrels, age, war and genocide are given a comic gloss.”
I grew up with their [family’s] sense of humor, their conversation, their friends. I think their attitudes toward food and money were very typically Ukrainian.”
– Marina Lewycka, writer.
Humor played an important part in Lewycka’s life.
“That comes from my family,” she said. “I grew up with their sense of humor, their conversation, their friends. I think their attitudes toward food and money were very typically Ukrainian.”
That, however, is where Lewycka’s “Ukrainianness” ends.
Although she learned Ukrainian from her mother as a child, Lewycka’s parents wanted her to fit into the British society. Hailing from Poltava and Kyiv, they had spent time as forced laborers during World War II and then immigrated to Britain a year after Lewycka was born in Kiel, the sight of a German refugee camp in 1946.
“They were very keen to become as English as possible,” she said. “I think they wanted me to make my way in England. It’s not that they rejected the Ukrainian language and values, but [they felt] as emigrants we should fit into the home country.”
Still, Lewycka did not grow up quintessentially British.
“My parents very much identified with being outsiders, although they did have many friends who were Polish, Yugoslav friends, French and German friends, people who weren’t English” but who did have a shared emigre experience.
While Lewycka said that “ethnicity can be a trap as well as a comfort,” the cultural hodgepodge she experienced as a child has been at the foundation of her books.
Lewycka had almost been ready to give up on writing when “Tractors” was published.
She had been enrolled in a creative writing class through the university where she worked when her prose caught the attention of one of the course examiners, who happened to be a literary agent. By then, Lewycka, who began writing at the age of four, had already completed two novels – and received 36 rejections for the second.
The premise for “Tractors” was taken from family experience, while the characters were drawn from people she had met, Lewycka said. “I wrote it for fun, for myself and for my friends,” she said admitting that she never expected the book would be published.
I wrote it for fun, for myself and for my friends.”
– Marina Lewycka, writer.
The agent took her on and within months not only was “Tractors” on Britain’s best-seller list, but quickly became an award winner, among which a nomination for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. The book sold more than one million copies in the U.K. alone and has been translated into 29 languages, including Russian, but not Ukrainian, something which mystifies Lewycka to this day.
Perhaps, she said, Ukrainians “wanted me to have a more reverential look at Ukraine.”
While Ukrainians are unlikely to get reverence from Lewycka any time soon, what they have found is a compassionate voice that, through humor, is able to chronicle their struggles.
“Two Caravans,” which was translated into Ukrainian, stemmed from a booklet Lewycka was given about the plight of Ukrainian seasonal strawberry pickers in Britain.
“I read it and I thought ‘Hum, if my parents hadn’t come as refugees as they did in 1947…I would be part of this new global migration, not displaced by war, but work. If I don’t tell this story, nobody else will.’”
Her newest novel will explore the world of finance, the credit crunch and the global economic crisis. “It does have a Ukrainian character, it’s a girl and she’s a banker, but she’s not an oligarch,” Lewycka laughed.
Kyiv Post staff writer Natalia A. Feduschak can be reached at [email protected].
