By Peter.
Westminster, 1 December 2025 – In a deeply moving ceremony, Marina Lewycka has been named the winner-of-winners of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize on its silver jubilee, with her 2005 masterpiece A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian declared the funniest and most enduring comic novel of the past quarter-century.
The decision was taken the day before Lewycka passed away at age 79 after a long illness. Judge and Hay Festival co-founder Peter Florence revealed:
“I’m so glad she knew she had won.”
Accepting the award on her behalf were her partner, historian Donald Sassoon, and daughter Sonia Lewycka, who collected the traditional jeroboam of Bollinger and the ceremonial Gloucester Old Spot pig (now named Tractors in perpetuity).
Claudia Winkleman, on the superstar judging panel, called the book:
“Laugh-out-loud funny, utterly original and also deeply moving – the rare novel that makes you howl with laughter on the Tube and then quietly cry two pages later.”
Beating an extraordinary shortlist that included Ian McEwan, Helen Fielding, Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Coe, Alexander McCall Smith, Geoff Dyer, Percival Everett and Bob Mortimer, Tractors was praised for growing even richer with time — its portrait of a fractious Ukrainian-British family now refracted through two decades of war, migration and refugee experience.
Florence added:
“She has us at the title, and she rocks us on every page. The comedy is somehow both darker and more vivid now.”
2025 Prize Goes to Rosanna Pike
In the same ceremony, Rosanna Pike won the 2025 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for her joyous historical romp A Little Trickerie (Fig Tree/Penguin).
The novel reimagines the true story of Tibb Ingleby, a 16th-century con-artist who posed as an angel in a Herefordshire priory. Critics have called it “lovable, fun and emotionally juicy”, with Imogen Hermes Gowar praising Pike’s “great panache” and Tibb’s glorious, unapologetic voice.
Pike receives:
- A Gloucester Old Spot pig named Trickerie
- A jeroboam + case of Bollinger Special Cuvée
- The full Everyman’s Library PG Wodehouse collection
Both winning novels are published by Fig Tree (Penguin), making it a historic double for the imprint.
Rest in laughter, Marina. The tractors — and the prize — are forever yours.
#MarinaLewycka #TractorsInUkrainian #BollingerWodehousePrize #RosannaPike #ALittleTrickerie #ComedyGold
