I don’t understand why so many want to be writers: Marina Lewcyka

Marina Lewcyka’s first novel, A Short History of Tractors In Ukrainian, published in 2005, was a comic best-seller that’s been translated into 29 languages and was long-listed for the Booker prize.

She was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, after World War II, and her family later moved to England. Given her German connection and Ukrainian ethnicity, as a child, she struggled to fit in despite being White. As an adult, she strove, through her writing, to preserve her Ukrainian roots. The Mag caught up with her during her recent trip to India. Excerpts:

You published your first book at the age of 58. It looks like you’ve waited a long time to realise your ambition of becoming a writer.
I think if you are a writer, it is in your blood. And you write not with the aim of getting published but because that is what you do as an individual. Though I was not published, I would always be writing. In fact, I wrote my first poem when I was only four year old. The reason it took me so long was because it took me time to find the right voice and the right story to tell.

How hard was it to face rejections from publishers?
It was terrible. As a writer, you expose yourself to humiliation and criticism. And I don’t understand why so many people want to be writers. A writer has to be thick-skinned to try again and again.

Can you describe your childhood, as the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants?
The World War was just getting over, and the Cold War was beginning. There was a lot of anti-German rhetoric and anti-Russian rhetoric at that time, and I got caught between the two. Little boys called me a Gerry because I was born in Germany or a Rusky or commie because no one had heard of Ukraine. It wasn’t really racism, but because I looked different from others, I didn’t quite fit in despite being White.

How did these experiences influence you as a writer?
At that time, I retreated into my own world. Maybe it’s one of the reasons I became a writer. I desperately wanted to fit in. This made me keen on seeing what people ate, how they behaved and spoke, etc. This habit of observation  helped me become a writer.

When did you decide to explore your Ukrainian roots?
When I was growing up I wanted to be English. I wanted to be like everybody else. I didn’t want to have anything to do with Ukraine. I would never get my parents home. They were too odd and I didn’t want my friends to see that. But I saw my parents growing old and realised that if I did not do something, this culture will be lost to me. I started to talk to them and take interest.

Were your parents ever well assimilated into Britain?
No, my parents never got fully assimilated. But they were happy. In their lives they experienced the Russian Revolution, the civil war, the first famine, more civil war, the second famine, World War II, being deported into Germany and made to work in labour camps. So when they came to England, all they wanted was to take a deep breath, put up their legs and relax.

How did you find your extended cousins in Ukraine?
I was trying to find out more about my grandfather, who was a war hero during the Tsarist regime. So I typed the surname of my family on a website tracing genealogies. And many months later, after my book got published, I heard from a cousin. She’d written, “Hello Marina, we are your long lost relatives”.

How was your experience when you first met them?
Before my mother died, I made a tape recording everything she’d experienced, thinking that would make a book. But I realised there wasn’t enough matter. So when I went to Ukraine, I met my mother’s sister. She was 87. I gave the tape to her and she listened to her sisters’ voice after 62 years, and my mother was talking about life and how she got separated from her sister. It was an incredible experience.

How do you sit down to write?
I’m a messy writer. I have a plan — characters, settings, etc. But it all goes out the window. I try to put in six hours of writing every day. I just get up, plomp myself on the bed with cushions and start typing, drinking tea at the same time.