Booker Prize Winner

Something to Answer For

by P. H. Newby

Summary

An English fundraiser travels to Port Said on the eve of the Suez Crisis and finds himself entangled in a death he barely understands. Newby blurs the line between hallucination and reality, using a fractured, often unreliable narration to mirror the moral confusion of a fading empire. The novel's elliptical style anticipated the introspective postcolonial fiction that would follow in subsequent decades.

Historical Context & Significance

The very first winner of the Booker Prize; the prize money was originally £5,000 (roughly £85,000 today).