John Yorke looks at the background to A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and assesses the appeal of this worldwide best seller by Marina Lewycka. Two feuding sisters unite to thwart their newly widowed father’s impending marriage to Valentina - a voluptuous gold-digger from Ukraine who loves green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine and who’ll stop at nothing in her single-minded pursuit of the luxurious Western lifestyle she dreams of.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless.  As creator of the BBC Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names.  He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.

Contributor:
Professor Andrew Wilson, Professor of Ukrainian studies at University College London and author of ‘The Ukrainians’

Archive:
Radio 4 – Marina Lewycka on 'Book Club', 8th January 2015

Readings from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian: Marina Lewycka (Penguin Essentials, 71), 2017

Reader: Janet Ellis
Producer: Alison Vernon-Smith
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4