Marina Lewycka

Marina Lewycka (born 1946, Kiel) is a British novelist of Ukrainian origin, currently living in Sheffield, England.

Biography

Marina Lewycka was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany after World War II. Her family subsequently moved to England where she now lives. She graduated from Keele University in 1968 with BA in English and Philosophy and from the University of York with a BPhil in English Literature in 1969.^[1] She began, but did not complete, a PhD at King's College London.

She currently works as a lecturer in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University.^[2]

Artwork for Two Caravans, recalling the North American title of the novel, Strawberry Fields.

Works

Lewycka's debut novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian won the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic writing at the Hay literary festival,^[3] the 2005/6 Waverton Good Read Award, the 2005 Saga Award for Wit;^[2] it was long-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize^[4] and short-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction.^[2][5] The novel has been translated into over twenty-nine languages, including Romanian, Bulgarian, Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, and Catalan.^{[6][dead link]}

Lewycka said in a 2008 interview that she would have been happy to write a sequel to A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian after the initial book's success but was advised against doing so.^{[citation needed]} Instead she wrote her second novel Two Caravans, which was published in hardback in March 2007 by Fig Tree (Penguin Books) for the United Kingdom market, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize for political writing.^[7] In the United States and Canada it is published under the title Strawberry Fields.

Lewycka's third novel We Are All Made of Glue was released in July 2009.^[8]

In 2009, she donated the short story "The Importance of Having Warm Feet" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Lewycka's story was published in the 'Earth' collection.^[9]

Later the same year, she donated a second short story, "Business Philosophy", to the Amnesty International anthology Freedom: Short Stories Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.^[10]

In addition to her fiction, Lewycka has written a number of books giving practical advice for carers of elderly people, published by the charity Age Concern.

References

1. ^ "From Tractors to Caravans". Grapevine (Alumni Office, University of York) (Autumn 2007): 17. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Contemporary Writers, British Council
3. ^ BBC
4. ^ Man Booker Prize 2005
5. ^ Guardian
6. ^ Translations of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
7. ^ The Orwell Prize Shortlist 2008
8. ^ Amazon UK
9. ^ Oxfam: Ox-Tales
10. ^ Amazon UK

External links

• Fans of Marina Lewycka Facebook Group
• Complete bibliography, list of awards and critical perspective at Contemporary Writers website
• In depth biographical article at Derbyshire Life magazine website
• "Better Late Than Never", Interview by Stephen Moss, The Guardian, 31 May 2007. Retrieved on 31 May 2007
• Three Monkeys Interview
• Debut Novelist Takes Comic Prize about her winning the Bollinger for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
• Review of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Guardian, 19 March 2005
• Review of Two Caravans, TimesOnLine, 25 March 2007
• Interview in the Guardian, 15 July 2008
• Marina Lewycka talks about We are all Made of Glue on The Interview Online

Persondata
Name	Lewycka, Marina
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Date of birth	1946
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