Displacement and alienation are regular themes in Manning 's books . Characters are often isolated , physically and emotionally removed from family and familiar contexts and seeking a place to belong . This crisis of identity may reflect that of Manning herself as the daughter of an Irish mother and a British naval officer . " I 'm really confused about what I am , never really feeling that I belong in either place " , she told an interviewer in 1969 . In Manning 's war fiction , conflict creates additional anxiety , emotional displacement and distance , with characters unable to communicate with each other . Eve Patten notes the " pervasive sense of liminality " and the recurrent figure of the refugee in Manning 's work . Early literary interest in displacement was reinforced by Manning 's own terrifying and disorientating experiences as a refugee during the war . Her travels also brought her into direct contact with the far worse plight of other war refugees , including Jewish asylum-seekers who were leaving Romania aboard the '' Struma '' . Exile had its rewards for literary refugees such as Manning , offering exposure to different cultures and " the sense of a greater , past civilisation " , as she described in her 1944 review of British poetry . Her writing reflects her deep concern for the realities of most refugees , who are portrayed as " a degraded and demoralised Other " , challenging complacent Western notions of stability and nationality
Struma
Struma disaster
Olivia Manning