Menning Oliviya

Olivia Mary Manning was a British writer, poet, and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, often describing journeys and personal odysseys in detail, were mainly set in Britain, Europe, and the Middle East. She often wrote from personal experience, although her books also show considerable strengths as works of imaginative writing. Her books are widely admired for their artistic vision and vivid descriptions of place.

Manning’s youth was divided between Portsmouth and Ireland, giving her what she described as “the common Anglo-Irish feeling of belonging nowhere.” She studied at art school and moved to London, where her first serious novel, The Wind Changes, was published in 1937. In August 1939 she married R. D. Smith (“Reggie”), a British Council lecturer working in Bucharest, Romania, and later lived in Greece, Egypt, and Mandatory Palestine as the Nazis overran Eastern Europe. Her experiences formed the basis of her best-known work — the six novels making up the Balkan Trilogy and the Levant Trilogy, known collectively as The Fortunes of War. Critics judged her overall output to be uneven in quality, but this series, published between 1960 and 1980, was described by Anthony Burgess as “the best fictional record of war produced by a British writer.”

After the war Manning returned to London and lived there until her death in 1980; she wrote poetry, short stories, novels, non-fiction, reviews, and dramas for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Both Manning and her husband had affairs, but they never considered divorce. Her relationships with writers such as Stevie Smith and Iris Murdoch were difficult, as the insecure Manning envied their greater success. Her constant grumbling about all manner of things is reflected in her nickname “Olivia Moans,” but Smith never wavered in his role as his wife’s chief supporter and encourager, confident that her talent would eventually be recognized.

As she had feared, true fame came only after her death in 1980, when a television adaptation of The Fortunes of War was broadcast in 1987.