Two Caravans

Two Caravans

by Marina Lewycka

Penguin, HK$280

Irina is in Britain to meet 'a gentleman in a bowler hat like Mr Brown in my Let's Talk English book, who looks supremely dashing and romantic, with his tight suit and rolled-up umbrella'. Andriy has come looking for his 'Angliska Rosa', who is blonde, driving a red open-top Ferrari and 'attracted to dashing men of action, men who are bold enough to make hazardous journeys and climb in through bedroom windows bearing boxes of chocolates etc'.

The two Ukrainians meet in a Kent strawberry field where, as illegal workers, they hope to earn some money before venturing out to discover the England of their Let's Talk English-book dreams.

With them are two Chinese girls; three Poles: voluptuous supervisor Yola, her religious niece Marta, and knicker-nicking Tomasz; Malawian Emanuel in search of his sister; and the mysterious Vitaly. They all share two caravans as sleeping quarters, pick strawberries in the day and eat communal dinners by fire in the field. The idyll is disrupted when Vulk, the middleman who arranged Irina's entry into England, arrives in search of 'little flovver' with whom he wants to 'make possibility'. As Vulk kidnaps Irina, the farmer's wife attacks Yola for servicing her husband.

Marina Lewycka's debut novel made her the first woman to win a prestigious comic fiction award. Her eagerly anticipated second novel, Two Caravans, is another piece of dark comedy that centres on human trafficking and sexual abuse. Beneath the veneer of hilarity is a grim tale of migrant workers and their exploitation at the hands of rapacious employers and gun-toting agents. The employers pay minimal wages and deduct 'living expenses' for providing accommodation in cramped caravans, filthy dorms or 'luxury' slum hostels; the agents believe the illegal workers are their booty to be traded into farm labour or sexual slavery.