British writer whose essays and novels explore the nature of nationalism and the cultural contrast between his own Irish-Indian ancestry and his traditional British upbringing.

After attending University College, London (1930–32), Menen worked as a drama critic (1934), stage director (1935–36), and director of a press service (1937–39). When World War II began, he was in India, where he organized pro-Allied radio broadcasts and edited film scripts for the Indian government. After the war he returned to London to work in an advertising agency, but the success of his first novel, The Prevalence of Witches (1947), induced him to write full-time. Among his other novels are The Backward Bride: A Sicilian Scherzo (1950), The Duke of Gallodoro (1952), The Fig Tree (1959), Shela: A Satire (1963), A Conspiracy of Women (1965), and Fonthill: A Comedy (1974). Menen's nonfiction includes travel books, popular essays about living in Italy, and two autobiographies, Dead Man in the Silver Market (1953) and The Space Within the Heart (1970).