Winner of the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969. It was 1956 and he was in Port Said. About these two facts Townrow was reasonably certain. He had been summoned there, to Egypt, by the widow of his deceased friend, Elie Khoury. Having been found dead in the street, she is convinced he was murdered, but nobody seems to agree with her. What of Leah Strauss, the mistress? And of the invading British paratroops? Only an Englishman, surely, would take for granted that the British would have behaved themselves. In this weirdly disorientating world, Townrow is forced towards a re-examination of the basic rules by which he has been living his life; and into a realization that he too may have something to answer for.

Percy Howard Newby CBE (1918.06.25 – 1997.09.06) 是一名英國小說傢兼廣播電颱MD，他憑藉小說《Something to Answer For》在1969年獲得第一屆布剋奬。

1942年退役之後，紐比在開羅 King Fouad大學任教英國文學4年。

1946年，他的第一本小說《A Journey into the Interior》齣版，他迴到英格蘭繼續寫作，同年獲得 Atlantic Book Award,兩年後獲得 Somerset Maugham Prize.1947年,其作品 《The Spirit of Jem》 齣版。

1949-1978年，他受雇於BBC，成為一個電颱廣播製作人，繼而成為BBC Third Programme的管理者，負責人，最終成為BBC的總經理, 因此而獲勛。