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Two Caravans

By Marina Lewycka

(36)

| Hardcover | 9780670916375

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Book Description

In the idyll of the English countryside, on a beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field, and around their two caravans, a little group of strawberry pickers is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. But who picks our strawberries these days?

The Ukrainians: Irina, just off the coach from Kiev Continue

In the idyll of the English countryside, on a beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field, and around their two caravans, a little group of strawberry pickers is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. But who picks our strawberries these days?

The Ukrainians: Irina, just off the coach from Kiev, and eager to improve her excellent English and find true love with a romantic Englishman; Andriy, the miner's son from the other Ukraine; the Poles: Bob Dylan fan, Tomasz, (whose smelly trainers will soon punish those in the men's caravan), Yola, the petite, voluptuous gangmistress and her religious niece Marta, who finds the wild mushrooms to cook with the sliced loaf; then there is Vitaly, king of the new mobilfon world of the shiny new Eastern Europe; two Chinese girls; Emanuel, the round eyed eighteen-year-old from Malawi, come to England to look for his sister. And although he can't exactly help pick strawberries, there's also the Dog... But these are a group leading dangerous lives - exploitative employers, British regulations and gang masters with guns will all threaten their existence as they take to the caravan road until each of them peels off to find their destiny.

Hilarious, gritty, moving, and slapstick by turns, "Two Caravans" has every bit of the extraordinary distinctiveness and wit and heart that made "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" so successful.

Critics

  • If you want true insight, ask the dog

    Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka Fig Tree £16.99, pp320 'English men are supposed to be incredibly romantic. There is a famous folk-legend of a man who braves death and climbs in through his lady's bedroom window just to bring her a box of chocolates.' ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • Poles apart

    Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka 320pp, Fig Tree, £16.99 "I have already started to think about the book I will write when I get back home," announces Irina, the Ukrainian heroine of Two Caravans. "But you have to have something interesting to write ab ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

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  • Hilarious and tragic at the same time, a difficult combination but once again Marina Lewycka has carried it off. Another farcical tale of Ukranians and other immigrants trying to find a better life for themselves in Englands green and pleasant land.
    It starts in the Strawberry fields of Kent and a s ... (continue)

    Hilarious and tragic at the same time, a difficult combination but once again Marina Lewycka has carried it off. Another farcical tale of Ukranians and other immigrants trying to find a better life for themselves in Englands green and pleasant land.
    It starts in the Strawberry fields of Kent and a series of incidents lead our protagonists Andriy and Irina to Sheffield. It starts with a much larger group of immigrants but they gradually get left along the way until we are left with just the two. The original group being exploited by their employers and the criminal types that found them the work in the first place, decide to take the caravan they currently live in on the road to find their destinys. The motley group consists of Andriy, Ukrainian, son of a miner, Polish Tomasz, Vitaly, Yola, her niece Marta, all from EasternEurope, two Chinese girls, Irina who is fairly educated and is in England to improve her English, Emanuel from Malawi and of course the dog. The latter even narrates the story at times from a dogs point of view, strange but funny! It is on the road during various adventures whilst discovering the harsh realities of life that the group disperses all over England..

    Among the adventures are scenes in a poultry rearing unit, which makes disturbing reading if you are overly sensitive to such unpleaseant facts. Also making a brief appearance in a nursing home adventure is the old man Nikolai Mayevskyj from the authors first novel, a clever and amusing little touch. Fishing, restaurant work, and of course the initial strawberry picking scenes are also involved in this comical but poignant view of the illegal immigrant community in England.

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    Lindyloumac said on Jan 24, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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