(shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize; Book Sense Pick) The author of the Orange and the Man Booker Prize–nominated A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine returns with this lively picaresque novel about a crew of migrant workers from Eastern Europe, China, and Africa, living a fairly harmonious existence with the red-faced Farmer Leaping in a valley of strawberries in Kent. When Leaping's wife finds out about his tryst with a Polish berry picker, however, the rest of the workers flee in one of their caravans, beginning a series of misadventures as they all pursue their fantasies about life in England but keep bumping rudely into reality. Marina Lewycka's second novel was published in North America as Strawberry Fields.
"Her last book was entertaining, but this one is better.... [This book] all but sings with zest for life, and could hardly be more engaging, shrewd and winningly perceptive about the waste inflicted by prejudice and injustice."—Sunday Times (London)
