P. H. Newby P. H. Newby Percy Howard Newby CBE (25 June 1918 – 6 September 1997) was an English novelist and broadcasting administrator. He was the first winner of the Booker Prize, his novel "Something to Answer For" having received the inaugural award in 1969. P.H. Newby, known as Howard Newby, was born in Crowborough, Sussex on 25 June 1918 and was educated at Hanley Castle Grammar School in Worcestershire, and St Paul's College of Education in Cheltenham. In October 1939 he was sent to France to serve in World War II as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. His
In the Light of What We Know – but for our century.” Rebecca Mead of "The New Yorker" wrote that the novel was "talky and intellectual, while also unfolding a riveting drama: a deeply satisfying book," and that it was remarkable, “a 21st-century novel written with the ambition of scope of a 19th-century novel, and bearing the seriousness of purpose of a 20th-century one.” "In the Light of What We Know" earned its author the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Britain's oldest literary prize. It was long-listed for the Orwell Prize 2015, the Guardian First Book award 2014, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2015,