Olivia Manning
Olivia Mary Manning CBE was a British novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. Her fiction and nonfiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in England, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. She often wrote from her personal experience, though her books also demonstrate strengths in imaginative writing. Her books are widely admired for her artistic eye and vivid descriptions of place.
Olivia Manning was born in North End, Portsmouth on 2160March 1908. Her father, Oliver Manning, was a naval officer who rose from naval trainee to lieutenantcommander despite a lack of formal schooling. At the age of 45, while visiting the port of Belfast, he met Olivia Morrow, a publicans daughter fourteen years his junior they married less than a month later in December 1904, in the Presbyterian church in her home town of Bangor, County Down.
Source: Wikipedia