Debut novel scoops literary prize

The 58-year-old author has had a pig named after her novel

A 58-year-old university lecturer has become the first female winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, the debut of Marina Lewycka, is a dark comedy about family feuds.

Lewycka, from Sheffield, has also been shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction.

She beat established authors like Terry Pratchett and Malcolm Pryce to the award, which is now in its sixth year.

'Stunning novel'

Lewycka draws on her Ukrainian heritage to tell the story of two feuding sisters who attempt to save their father from his young, gold-digging wife's dream of western luxury.

When her novel was first released, booksellers mistakenly stacked it in the agricultural sections.

But Guardian Hay Festival director Peter Florence, who announced the award on Sunday, said: "It's a comic masterpiece; a stunning novel of considerable humanity, created with captivating humour and compassion."

Literary knockbacks

Lewycka, who lectures in public relations at Sheffield Hallam University, was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, at the end of World War II.

She had suffered a number of literary knockbacks before success and it was not until her work was marked during a creative writing course that she got a publishing deal.

Her prize includes a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvee and having a Gloucestershire Old spot pig named after her novel.

Other authors on the shortlist were James Hamilton-Paterson, Lloyd Jones and Tiffany Murray.