Excerpt from Strawberry Fields (Two Caravans) by Marina Lewycka, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When the pit prop gave way and the roof fell in, Andriy was on one side of the cave-in and his father was on the other. He was on the living side; his father was on the side of the dead. He heard the roar, and he ran toward the light. He ran and ran. He is still running.

i am dog i run i run from bad man cage i hear dogs bark angry dogs growl angry dogs bark they will fight they will kill i smell dog rage man sweat man opens cage man pulls collar men sit smoke talk dogs bark light too bright big angry dog snarls shows teeth hairs bristle on his back he will kill i am not fighting dog i am running dog i jump i run i run two days i eat no meat hunger pains in belly make me mad i feel hunger i feel fear i run i run i am dog

The women’s trailer was small, but so cozy. I fell in love with it straightaway. I put my bag down and introduced myself.

"Irina. From Kiev."

Okay, there was some unpleasantness upon my arrival. Yola, the Polish supervisor, who is a coarse and uneducated person with an elevated view of her own importance, said some harsh words about Ukrainians for which she has yet to apologize. Okay, I was a bit dismayed at the overcrowded conditions, and I may have been a little tactless. But then the Chinese girls very kindly told me I could share their bed. I wished I hadn’t finished the poppy-seed cake, for a small gift can go a long way in these circumstances, but I still had a bottle of home-made cherry vodka for emergencies, and what was this if not an emergency? Soon we were all firm friends.

We ate our dinner sitting out on the hillside all together, drinking the rest of the vodka and watching the sun set. I was pleased to discover there’s another Ukrainian here - a nice though rather primitive miner from Donetsk. We chatted in Ukrainian over dinner. Poles and Ukrainians can understand each other’s language too, though it’s not the same. But of course I have come to England mainly to improve my English before I start my university course, so I hope I will soon meet more English people.

English was my favorite subject at school, and I had pictured myself walking through a panorama of cultivated conversations, like a painted landscape dotted with intriguing homonyms and mysterious subjunctives: would you were wooed in the wood. Miss Tyldesley was my favorite teacher. She even made English grammar seem sexy, and when she recited Byron she would close her eyes and breathe in deeply through her nose, trembling in a sort of virginal ecstasy, as though she could smell his pheromones wafting on the page. Please, control yourself, Miss Tyldesley! As you can imagine, I couldn’t wait to come to England. Now, I thought, my life will really begin.

After dinner I went back to the trailer and unpacked my bag. On a patch of wall below the head-level locker I put up my picture of Mother and Papa standing together in front of the fireplace at home. Mother is wearing pink lipstick and a ghastly pink scarf tied in what she thinks is a stylish bow; Papa is wearing his ridiculous orange tie. Okay, so they wear terrible clothes, but they can’t help it, and I still love them. Papa’s arm is around Mother’s shoulder, and they’re smiling in a stin uncertain way, like people whose hearts aren’t in it, who are just posing for the camera. I looked at it while I drifted on to sleep, and a few pathetic tears came into my eyes. Mother and Papa waiting for me at home - what’s so sad about that?

The next morning, when I woke up, the trailer was flooded with sunlight and everything seemed dinerent. The gloomy thoughts and fears of yesterday had fled like ghosts into the night. When I went out to the tap to wash, the water splashing on the stones caught the sunbeams and broke them into hundreds of brilliant rainbows that danced through my fingers, cold and tingly. In the copse behind me, a thrush was singing.

Excerpted from Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka Copyright © 2007 by Marina Lewycka. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Group USA, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.