I have seen the photos. I have read the books. I have laughed out loud, made notes in the margin and even read passages of her books to girlfriends on the phone late at night - but nothing prepares me for Marina Lewycka's energy, wit, and smiling face as we rendezvous in the Westfield Shopping Centre. We walk to the Library, our breath clear in the winter air, and our minds on characters as complex and removed from the Christmas rush as they can be.
These characters (whose eccentricity and original voices have won Marina numerous prizes) have made her the leading BEE voice in contemporary fiction. They emerge out of the flux, danger, conflict, resettlement and uncertainty that is Eastern Europe. Though-out her novels, they proceed to amuse and sadden us - often triumphing, despite the odds being stacked against them.
As we settle back into the armchairs and sofas of the Library, I see smiles flash across the faces in the audience. A Polish lady laughs at 'Yola', a character in Marina's 'Two Caravans'. A Ukrainian lady smiles knowingly, as she witnesses the voice of 'Valentina' come to life as Marina's reads extracts from 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian'. We hear the heart-wrenching stories at the centre of these novels, which vary from Israeli Palestinian conflicts, marital problems, imprisonment in labour camps (that Marina's own parents had to endure), to good old fashioned fun - like in the comic passages about Irina's love affair in 'Two Caravans', and also in the naughty episodes of 'We Are All Made of Glue'.
Audience members ask questions about her background, her incredible success after her creative writing course, the sources of her inspiration and of her visit to the Ukraine to trace her relatives.
I ask firstly whether the character of 'Vulk' from 'Two Caravans' was inspired after Marina's visit to the Ukraine, and secondly why 'Two Caravans' is dedicated to cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay? Marina answers that had her parents not come to England through a lucky historical technicality, perhaps she would have been one of them.
I suddenly realise, long after her peals of laughter have disappeared into the theatre, and the audience members have left, (clutching their signed copies), that smiling, funny, Marina is a precious thing ...a BEE writer - living with the memory of the initial waves of BEE immigration and who now embraces and writes about the New chapter in BEE history, with humour, originality and compassion.