Strangers at the Gates: the Middle East -- Part I. Olivia Manning: The Gates Besieged - World War II -- Part II. Muriel Spark and Ethel Mannin: The Gates Breached and the Struggle for Postcolonial Identity -- Strangers in a Walled Garden: Rumer Godden's Anglo-India -- Red Strangers: Elspeth Huxley's Africa -- Island Strangers: Phyllis Shand Allfrey and Phyllis Bottome