The Spirit of Jem: A Novel

P.H. Newby, known as Howard Newby, was born in Crowborough, Sussex on June 25, 1918 and was educated at Hanley Castle Grammar School in Worcestershire, and St Paul's College of Education in Cheltenham, England. Newby served in the British Army during World War II and then took a teaching position at Fouad 1st University in Cairo. He also worked for the BBC, becoming Controller of the Third Programme. Newby published a novel, "A Journey to the Interior," in 1945. In 1969, he was the first winner of the Booker Prize, a British literary prize given to a Commonwealth writer for the best novel published in the U.K. during the previous year, for "Something to Answer For." He died on September 6, 1997.