<P> A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a humorous novel by Marina Lewycka, first published in 2005 by Viking (Penguin Books). </P> <P> The novel won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize at the Hay literary festival, the Waverton Good Read Award 2005 / 6, and was short - listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction, losing to Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin . Over a million copies have been sold in the UK . </P> <P> The book was originally published in English, and has been translated into Russian and Ukrainian . In a BBC Bookclub interview, the author mentioned that some reviewers of the Ukrainian translation were hostile, seeing it as an attack on their country . </P> <P> 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 behavior escalates until the daughters finally succeed in obtaining a divorce for their father . </P>

A short history of tractors in the ukrainian by marina lewycka