P. H. Newby

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

Life

Career and climb to the BBC director

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

In 1939 he was drafted for military service and served first as a soldier of the Royal Army Medical Corps ( RAMC ) at the British Expeditionary Force ( BEF) in France. He then did his further service 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 as a lecturer in English literature at the Fuad I. University in Cairo and taught at this until 1946. His experiences in Egypt, his relations with strangers and students during this time was for him until his death formative. He then worked for several years as a freelancer.

After that, he was nearly thirty years of BBC staff and was there first expert, storyteller and editor of short stories in the department of radio interviews. In addition, he was later also moderator of the radio broadcasts First Reading and Literary Opinion, which dealt with literary publications and their authors, and then from 1958 to 1971 Controller of the Third Programme ( Third programs and since 1969 Radio Three) before it between 1971 and 1975 program Director of the radio was the BBC. In this role he was nominated for his services to the Commander of the British Empire ( CBE). Most recently, he was from 1975 to 1978 Managing Director of BBC Radio.

Writing activities

PH Newby was one of the few English writers such as Charles Percy Snow, Wallace Stevens and Roy Fuller, which led next to a high-level employment in the public service a successful career as a writer and on the other hand, these two activities are strictly separated.

In the more than fifty years since 1945, he published 20 novels, a book of short stories, two short novels for children, literary-critical work (like his pamphlet The Novel, 1945-50 (1951 ) and his critics in The Listener in the late 1940s ) as well as three books on the history of the Middle East. Some of his novels and short stories have been recognized and acclaimed by the critics.

His first two novels Journey to the Interior (1945 ) and Agents and Witnesses ( 1947) already partially based on this experience, although both have an imaginary scene: the Sultanate Rasuka in the first and an island in the Mediterranean in the second book. Both were interesting and professional books that gave Newby quickly a reputation as a novelist. For his debut novel, he was awarded the 1946 Atlantic Award and Agents and Witnesses 1948, when only a year earlier donated Somerset Maugham Award.

However, it was not until his ninth novel, The Picnic at Sakkara (1955), he presented his own experiences in Egypt fully into focus and achieved his most successful and most memorable performance. In this novel is Edward Perry, a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts in Giza, although a decent, but lowbrow man who is without knowledge as to the surroundings of one of his students, Muawiya Khaslat drawn. This admired Perry with a shameful surrender on the one hand, but on the other hand, contracted at the same time as an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood with the murder of Perry. Tragedy and farce form an intricate minuet. Delicate and hilarious with a hypnotic charm he wrote this wonderful novel set in Egypt is currently in the reign of King Faruq.

In 1969 he was awarded for his novel published in 1968 Something To Answer For he received the first Booker Prize, which again gave him attention, although the price as it is today is not a big media event and led only to a few hundred more copies.

His later novels especially successful Feelings Have Changed heard (1981 ), in which he recorded his experiences at the BBC. The after joining wrote to retire book contains portraits of Louis MacNeice and Laurence Gilliam, of the BBC's department for radio features until his death in 1964, by a discussion of broadcasting policy in the form of a subtle analysis of the difficulties of a great cultural organization.

Recently however, he had difficulties with the publication of his latest novel Something About Women (1995 ), which was initially rejected by several publishers, especially since he himself had previously written a few books over the years. Anthony Thwaite, a writer, literary critic of The Independent and former employees Newbys at the BBC, described the book as follows:

Writings

At PH Newbys 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 into the Wind ( 1986)
• Coming in with the Tide (1991 )

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

• Egypt: art, history, land and people, Lucerne 1979, ISBN 3-7243-0167-7