Percy Howard Newby

Percy Howard "PH" Newby CBE (born June 25, 1918 in Crowborough , Wealden , East Sussex , England ; † September 6, 1997 in Garsington , Oxfordshire ) was a British director of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and writer who wrote in 1969 for his novel Something to Answer For won the first Booker Prize .

Life

Professional career and promotion to BBC director

The son of a baker grew up in a house that once belonged to the doctor and writer Arthur Conan Doyle . After attending the Hanley Castle Grammar School in Worcestershire , he actually intended to study, but could not afford the tuition fees. Instead he attended St Paul's College in Cheltenham and then worked as a teacher for a short time .

In 1939 he was called up for military service and initially served as a soldier in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France . He then served as a nurse with the rank of corporal in the 8th Army in Egypt until the second battle of El Alamein in October and November 1942.

He was then seconded by the army to lecturer in English literature at Fuad-I University in Cairo , where he taught until 1946. He then worked as a freelancer for several years . His experiences in Egypt, his relationships with strangers and students during this time were formative for him until his death.

He then worked for the BBC for nearly thirty years, initially as an expert, narrator and short story editor in the radio interviews department. In addition, he was later also moderator of the radio programs First Reading and Literary Opinion , which dealt with literary new publications and their authors, and then from 1958 to 1971 controller of the third program ( Third Program or since 1969 Radio Three ), before he between 1971 and 1975 was program director of the BBC radio. In this capacity he was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services . Most recently, he was Managing Director of BBC Radio from 1975 to 1978.

After leaving the BBC, he was chairman of the English Stage Company from 1978 to 1984 , which is based in the Royal Court Theater .

Writing activities

Along with Charles Percy Snow , Wallace Stevens and Roy Fuller, PH Newby was one of the few English-speaking writers who, in addition to a high-ranking position in the public service, led a successful career as a writer and who, on the other hand, strictly separated these two activities.

In the more than fifty years since 1945 he has published 20 novels, a book of short stories , two short novels for children, literary criticism (such as his pamphlet The Novel, 1945-50 (1951) and his reviews in The Listener in the late 1940s ) and three books on the history of the Middle and Near East . Some of his novels and short stories have received critical acclaim and awards.

His first two novels Journey to the Interior (1945) and Agents and Witnesses (1947) were already based in part on these experiences, although both have an imaginary setting : the Sultanate of Rasuka in the first and an island in the Mediterranean in the second. Both were interesting and knowledgeable books that quickly gave Newby a reputation as a novelist . For his debut novel he was awarded the Atlantic Award in 1946 and for Agents and Witnesses in 1948 with the Somerset Maugham Award , which had only been donated a year earlier .

However, it was not until his ninth novel The Picnic at Sakkara (1955) that he fully focused on his own experiences in Egypt and thus achieved his most successful and most memorable achievement. In this novel, Edward Perry, a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts in Giza, is a decent but inexperienced man who is drawn into the environment of one of his students, Muawiya Khaslat, without knowing it. He admires Perry with a shameful devotion on the one hand, but on the other hand is charged with the murder of Perry as an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood . Tragedy and farce form an intricate minuet. Delicate and funny with a hypnotic charm, he wrote this wonderful novel set in Egypt during the reign of King Faruq .

In 1969 he received the first Booker Prize for his novel Something To Answer For , published in 1968 , which again attracted attention, although the prize is not a major media event as it is today and only resulted in a few hundred multiple copies.

Feelings Have Changed (1981), in which he processed his experiences with the BBC, is one of his later, more successful novels . The book, written after his retirement, contains portraits of Louis MacNeice and Laurence Gilliam , who headed the BBC's radio features department until his death in 1964 , as well as a presentation of broadcasting policy in the form of a subtle analysis of the difficulties of a major cultural Organization.

Most recently, however, he had difficulties with the publication of his last novel Something About Women (1995), which was initially rejected by some publishers, especially since he himself had only written a few books in previous years. Anthony Thwaite , a writer, literary critic of the daily newspaper The Independent and former employees Newbys at the BBC, described the book as follows:

“ Something About Women is a dry, light, thought-lost, wonderful novel about inclinations, love, innocence, experiences. Newby's agent submitted it to publishers as Newby was tired and sick of making necessary editing himself ; in fact, this book did not require it, and the conversations on the phone and the necessary correspondence were simple, solid and easy as before. The book's release in 1995 wasn't spectacular, and despite some warm and intelligent reviews, it didn't sell. This disappointed me. "(" Something About Women is a wry, gentle, bemused, delightful novel, about affection, love, innocence, experience. By the time Newby's literary agent submitted it, Newby was tired and ill, not eager for face- to-face "hands- on" editing; but in fact the book required none of this, and our talks on the telephone and our correspondence were easy, firm and gentle as ever. The book's publication in 1995 was not spectacular: it had some warm and intelligent reviews, but it did not sell. This disappointed me. ")

Fonts

PH Newby's other publications include the following novels:

• Mariner Dances (1948)
• The Loot Runners (1949)
• The Snow Pasture (1949)
• The Young May Moon (1950)
• A Season in England (1951)
• A Step to Silence (1952)
• The Retreat (1953)
• Revolution and Roses (1957)
• Ten Miles From Anywhere (1958)
• A Guest and His Going (1960)
• The Barbary Light (1962)
• One of the Founders (1965)
• Spirit of Jem (1967)
• A Lot to Ask (1973)
• Kith (1977)
• Feelings Have Changed (1981)
• Leaning in the Wind (1986)
• Coming in with the Tide (1991)

Other works include Maria Edgeworth (1950), The Uses of Broadcasting (1978), The Egypt Story (1979), Warrior Pharaohs (1980) and Saladin in His Time (1983).

in German language

• Egypt: Art, History, Country and People , Lucerne 1979, ISBN 3-7243-0167-7

Web links

• PH Newby - Homepage
• Literature by and about Percy Howard Newby in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Percy Howard Newby at Open Library
• The Independent : Obituary: PH Newby (obituary 9 September 1997)