a b c d e f g h Patten, Eve (2007), "Olivia Manning, Imperial Refugee", in Allen, Nicholas; Patten, Eve (eds.), That Island Never Found, Four Courts Press, pp.91–104, ISBN 978-1-84682-072-4 The approaching war and rise of fascism and the Iron Guard in Romania disconcerted and frightened Manning. [42] The abdication of King Carol and the advance of the Germans in September 1940 increased her fears, and she repeatedly asked Smith "But where will the Jews go?" Just before German troops entered Romania on 7 October at the invitation of the new dictator Ion Antonescu, Manning flew to Greece, followed a week later by Smith. [53] Greece and Egypt [ edit ] The authenticity of Manning’s writing is beyond dispute, skilfully telling the story of these men at war, as richly evocative of the life in the desert in the sporadic skirmishes as she is at depicting life in the capital among the expatriates. Only towards the very end does it feels like she was over it, having written the two trilogies for a long period of time. This led me to think about a character who never appears in the book: Franklin Roosevelt. Historians have painted him in heroic hues, but Roosevelt was a pragmatist, a politician, a charmer. He could lie, too, if he had too. He would need all these skills to deal with his new best friends, Stalin and Churchill. Hero-worshipers like to think that Roosevelt and Churchill acted in collusion, wary of Stalin, and that's certainly true to some extent. Lost often, though, is that Roosevelt played Churchill as much as the pair of them tried to play Stalin. Roosevelt did so because he was well aware that Churchill did not want to lose the war, but perhaps not secondarily, did not want to lose the Empire. I thought of that as I heard a seasoned soldier in this book speak: Fresh blood and fresh equipment: that's what we need. Give us both and we'll manage somehow. They've got Hitler's intuition and we've got Churchill's interference: 'bout evens things up, wouldn't you say?

Guy continues to be self-centered and blind to the needs of his wife, but always on call for his friends. In "The Balkan Trilogy", they were newlyweds and Harriett was learning that romance didn't last when real life came barging in. In this second set of books, she takes action on a marriage that has been disappointing. And along the way, we meet some of the people thrown together because of the war. We also travel through some beautiful scenery in the land of the pyramids and the dawn of civilization. a b c Bostridge, Mark (21 November 2004), "Just say how much you admire me", Independent on Sunday, p.31 , retrieved 23 May 2009

The novels describe the experiences of a young married couple, Harriet and Guy Pringle, early in World War II. A lecturer and passionate Communist, Guy is attached to a British Council educational establishment in Bucharest ( Romania) when war breaks out, and the couple are forced to leave the country, passing through Athens and ending up in Cairo, Egypt. Harriet is persuaded to return home by ship, but changes her mind at the last minute and goes to Damascus with friends. Guy, hearing that the ship has been torpedoed, for a time believes her to be dead, but they are eventually reunited. Butler, Beverley (2001), "Egypt: Constructed Exiles of the Imagination", in Winer, Margot; Bender, Barbara (eds.), Contested Landscapes: Movement, Exile and Place, Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, p.306, ISBN 1-85973-467-7

Manning was deeply affected by the sudden death in 1977 of Jerry Slattery, her lover and confidant for more than a quarter of a century. [153] Manning's last years were also made difficult by physical deterioration; arthritis increasingly affected her, [154] leading to hip replacements in 1976 and in 1979 and she suffered poor health related to amoebic dysentery caught in the Middle East. [155] Manning began work on the final novel in The Levant Trilogy, The Sum of Things, in which Harriet agrees to sail home to the UK, but having said goodbye to Guy, changes her mind. The novel describes Harriet's travels in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, observes Guy's supposed widowerhood in Cairo after he hears of the sinking of Harriet's ship, and follows Simon Boulderstone's injury during the battle of El Alamein and recovery. [156] Guy's best actions are to befriend Simon a young English soldier who has been injured and must undergo a long period of rehabilitation. When Simon falls in love with Edwina, the fast living gold-digger Guy manages to open Simon's eyes about her. Richler, Mordecai (1993), Writers on World War II: an anthology, London: Vintage, pp.59–62, ISBN 0-09-922581-6 This prescription was so well filled by the Olivia Manning Balkan and Levant trilogies. I have such a warm feeling in my chest after having finished the six volumes. Manning introduced me to a full range of human types, people I loved and hated as the clouds of war chased them across southern Europe and on to the Middle East. This was a part of World War II that I had not paid a great deal of attention to. And along that plane, incidentally, I learned a lot. There was so much. Olivia Manning, Bowker's Global Books in Print, archived from the original on 5 January 2009 , retrieved 8 April 2010Manning was the perfect person to write this book. Indifferent to the systems of thought that obsessed her husband, she was instead fascinated by people, their interactions, and circumstance. “If you were more interested in people,” Harriet snaps at Guy at one point, “you might not like them so much.” She was also blessed with a photographic memory for individuals, places, and things. “She never forgets a detail,” Reggie was to say proudly of her. “Even twenty years after we were in Cairo, she could remember every sepia photograph hanging on the walls of the first pension in which we stayed.” a b c d e Meyers, Jeffrey (2001), Privileged Moments: Encounters with Writers, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, p.112, ISBN 0-299-16944-8