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Olivia Manning: literature’s brilliant, overlooked woman of war

The Balkan Trilogy 3

Friends And Heroes

Magnificent ... full of wit, sharp insight and vivid description.

A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of the war

So glittering is the overall parade ... and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement'

One most salute the brilliance ... the exactness of sights and sounds, the precise touches of light and scent, the gestures and entrances.

A delicate, tough, mesmerising epic that grabs you by the hand and takes you straight into war, flight, and a complex and vulnerable young marriage

I shall be surprised, and, I must admit, dismayed if the whole work is not recognized as a major achievement in the English novel since the war. Certainly it is an astonishing recreation.

Glittering characterisation, sharp and eloquent writing.

An important 20th-century writer who paints a complex relationship between gender and power with wit and sensitivity.

Lush and lyrical - and darkly funny even at its most gut-punching - Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy manages to simultaneously be a sweeping panorama of a Europe in crisis and a discomfitingly intimate portrait of a no-less-broken marriage.

Tara Isabella Burton, author of Social Creature

An addictive, gripping literary saga ... A sharp portrait of a young marriage under pressure and a vivid picture of being a Brit in an increasingly hostile and impoverished corner of Europe.

Olivia Manning takes autobiographical writing to a refreshingly new dimension. In The Balkan Trilogy she follows the well-worn mantra that authors should write about what they know, but she does so without sounding self-centred, a quality that so often dogs memoirs. Her's reads like wholly invented fiction with made-up, yet believable characters. It has been such a joy to re-read Manning's Trilogy...Manning's characterisation throughout the Trilogy is excellent. Her most astute depiction of a person in genuine inner conflict with himself is Guy Pringle...The author's depiction of Bucharest and the places Harriet and Guy visit are bold and colourful.

Olivia Manning, OBE, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, spent much of her youth in Ireland and, as she puts it, had 'the usual Anglo-Irish sense of belonging nowhere'. The daughter of a naval officer, she produced her first novel, The Wind Changes, in 1937. She married just before the War and went abroad with her husband, R.D. Smith, a British Council lec-turer in Bucharest. Her experiences there formed the basis of the work which makes up The Balkan Trilogy. As the Germans approached Athens, she and her husband evacuated to Egypt and ended up in charge of the Palestine Broadcasting Station. They returned to London in 1946 and lived there until her death in 1980.

'So glittering is the overall parade - and so entertaining the surface - that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid' - Sunday Times 
 
'Wonderfully entertaining' - Observer 
 
Athens, 1941. Harriet Pringle feverishly awaits news of her husband, trapped in the spoilt city of Bucharest. Yet when the young couple are reunited, Guy once again becomes absorbed in his work, leading Harriet to seek the attention of a handsome young officer. But when Greece is defeated and Europe starts to crumble around them, Guy and Harriet are forced to find a new strength amidst the devastation. Manning's exquisite observations on love, marriage and friendship during wartime are brought vibrantly to life.

The Balkan Trilogy 2

The Spoilt City

So glittering is the overall parade ... and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement

A delicate, tough, mesmerising epic that grabs you by the hand and takes you straight into war, flight, and a complex and vulnerable young marriage'

Lush and lyrical - and darkly funny even at its most gut-punching - Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy manages to simultaneously be a sweeping panorama of a Europe in crisis and a discomfitingly intimate portrait of a no-less-broken marriage.

'Her gallery of personages is huge, her scene painting superb, her pathos controlled, her humour quiet and civilised' - Anthony Burgess 
 
'Glittering characterisation, sharp and eloquent writing' - Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Wonderfully entertaining' - Observer 
 
Bucharest, 1940. The city is on the brink of invasion and Guy and Harriet Pringle find their position growing ever more dangerous. Harriet longs for safety, while Guy's idealism frustrates his new wife. But when the Germans march in, Guy believes they must separate in a desperate bid to find safety, so Harriet leaves for Athens. The Spoilt City is a dramatic and colourful portrait of a city in turmoil, and of a young couple struggling to make their marriage work in the face of adversity.

The Balkan Trilogy 1

The Great Fortune

The first novel in The Balkan Trilogy is a powerful depiction of love and friendship during wartime

Magnificent...full of wit, sharp insight and vivid description.

So glittering is the overall parade … and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement

One must salute the brilliance … the exactness of sights and sounds, the precise touches of light and scent, the gestures and entrances

Glittering characterisation, sharp and eloquent writing

Lush and lyrical -- and darkly funny even at its most gut-punching -- Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy manages to simultaneously be a sweeping panorama of a Europe in crisis and a discomfitingly intimate portrait of a no-less-broken marriage.

An important 20th-century writer who paints a complex relationship between gender and power with wit and sensitivity

Inspired by Manning's own life, it's a portrait of a marriage as well as a disintegrating society, written with a cool eye and ironic style

Manning is an astute observer of people and writes eloquently about their traits and behaviours. Thus, The Great Fortune is rich with eccentric characters ... A real pleasure to re-read the first volume of Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy in this new Anniversary Edition and to revel in her erudite prose.

Manning's depictions of abandoned Harriet's solitary explorations of seething, colourful Bucharest are fabulous.

Olivia Manning, OBE, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The daughter of a naval officer, she produced her first novel, The Wind Changes, in 1937. She married just before the War and went abroad with her husband, R. D. Smith, a British Council lecturer in Bucharest. Her experiences there formed the basis of the work which makes up The Balkan Trilogy. As the Germans approached Athens, she and her husband evacuated to Egypt and ended up in charge of the Palestine Broadcasting Station. They returned to London in 1946 and lived there until her death in 1980.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RACHEL CUSK 
 
'A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of the war' Sarah Waters 
 
'Wonderfully entertaining' Observer 
 
Autumn, 1939. Newly-weds Guy and Harriet Pringle step aboard the train to Bucharest. Guy's lecturing job awaits, alongside friends and the ever-ardent Sophie - but for Harriet, alone and naive, it's a strange new life. As Guy's world collides with that of his new bride, Harriet realises how little she knows the man she has married. Manning's masterpiece, alive with exhilarating characters, is a haunting evocation of young love and the uncertainty of war.

The Rain Forest

From one of the classic writers of post-war English literature comes a stunning novel of love, betrayal and redemption.

So rich and significant- the novel gives the impression of having been felt as well as imagined -- beautifully written, buttressed by wisdom, judgement, keen observation and knowledge of life.

This novel -- so masterly, so calm and dazzling -- is her most ambitious. It is also her best.

Olivia Manning, OBE, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, spent much of her youth in Ireland, and, as she puts it, had 'the usual Anglo-Irish sense of belonging nowhere'. The daughter of a naval officer, she produced her first novel, The Wind Changes, in 1937. She married just before the War, and went abroad with her husband, R. D. Smith, a British Council lecturer in Bucharest. Her experiences there formed the basis of the work which makes up The Balkan Trilogy. As the Germans approached Athens, she and her husband evacuated to Egypt and ended up in charge of the Palestine Broadcasting Station. They returned to London in 1946 and lived there until her death in 1980.

From one of the classic writers of post-war English literature comes a stunning novel of love, betrayal and redemption. Married but obstinately set in their separate ways, Hugh and Kristy Foster know nothing of Al-Bustan, a far-flung island in the Indian Ocean. Too late they discover how it seethes with unrest and intrigue. Yet now when they need each other, the sullen, muttering forest seems only to intensify their differences.

Doves Of Venus

The dramatic and intense depiction of a love triangle set against the fashionable background of 1940s London.

Olivia Manning has a wonderful and unfailing flair for describing both the atmosphere and the furniture of the world in which her people move

Manning writes always with a poet's care for words and it is her usual distinction of style and construction that lifts the novel- far, far above the average run

The most considerable of our women novelists

Pretty, brave and eighteen, Ellie has come to London in search of adventure. She soon finds it in Quintin Bellot, the handsome but tired dilettante who finds her a job in fashionable Chelsea. But Quintin, the seducer of one dove, is also the husband of another. And Petta, his once beautiful wife, is fighting back age as fiercely as Ellie is plunging into it.

A Romantic Hero

Olivia Manning, OBE, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The daughter of a naval officer, she produced her first novel, The Wind Changes, in 1937. She married just before the War and went abroad with her husband, R. D. Smith, a British Council lecturer in Bucharest. Her experiences there formed the basis of the work which makes up The Balkan Trilogy. As the Germans approached Athens, she and her husband evacuated to Egypt and ended up in charge of the Palestine Broadcasting Station. They returned to London in 1946 and lived there until her death in 1980.

Fourteen subtle and beautifully written stories of varying theme and setting are brought together in this brilliant collection: haunting studies of lonely childhoods, shrewdly perceptive portraits of adult relationships and black comedies of domestic deadlock - all infused with Olivia Manning's precise and consistent wit.

School For Love

From the most considerable of our women novelists a compelling portrait of a relationship between a young man and a matriarch.

Here is a woman of unfathomable depths of meanness and cunning -- a triumph of portraiture, compassionate, witty and assured.

Distinctly out of the ordinary, School for Love shows remarkable qualities of force and originality.

"Deep, sharp and narrow." That is a phrase which has been applied to some of the finest mathematical analysts: I should like to borrow it to describe Olivia Manning -- This is a remarkable book.

In common with the best writers, Olivia Manning has, besides wit, a sympathetic heart and a barometer-like sensitivity to the vagaries of human behaviour

Orphaned, friendless and bewildered, young Felix Latimer comes to war-time Jerusalem to lodge with Miss Bohun, one of the most redoubtable (and ridiculous) of comic horrors in English fiction.

Olivia Manning

A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of war

So glittering is the overall parade- and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement.

One must salute the brilliance ... the exactness of sights and sounds, the precise touches of light and scent, the gestures and entrances

Rereleased with glorious new covers ... it's an ambitious and classic series that'll utterly absorb you.

'Her gallery of personages is huge, her scene painting superb, her pathos controlled, her humour quiet and civilised' Anthony Burgess 
 
'So glittering is the overall parade - and so entertaining the surface - that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement' Sunday Times 
 
'A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of the war' Sarah Waters 
 
The Balkan Trilogy is the story of a marriage and of a war, a vast, teeming, and complex masterpiece in which Olivia Manning brings the uncertainty and adventure of civilian existence under political and military siege to vibrant life. 
 
At the heart of the trilogy are newly-weds Guy and Harriet Pringle, who arrive in Bucharest - the so-called Paris of the East - in the autumn of 1939, just weeks after the German invasion of Poland. Guy's lecturing job awaits, alongside friends and the ever-ardent Sophie - but for Harriet, alone and naive, it's a strange new life. Other surprises follow: Romania joins the Axis, and before long German soldiers overrun the capital. The Pringles flee south to Greece, part of a group of refugees made up of White Russians, journalists, con artists, and dignitaries. In Athens, however, the couple will face a new challenge of their own...

Olivia Manning

Praise for The Balkan Trilogy

Magnificent ... full of wit, sharp insight and vivid description.

A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of war

So glittering is the overall parade- and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement.

Magnificent ... full of wit, sharp insight and vivid description.

A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of war

So glittering is the overall parade- and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement.

Magnificent ... full of wit, sharp insight and vivid description.

A fantastically tart and readable account of life in eastern Europe at the start of war

So glittering is the overall parade- and so entertaining the surface that the trilogy remains excitingly vivid; it amuses, it diverts and it informs, and to do these things so elegantly is no small achievement.

Books by Olivia Manning

Articles featuring Olivia Manning

Olivia Manning: literature’s brilliant, overlooked woman of war

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