Which novel received the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969?

Something to Answer For received the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969. Written by P. H. Newby, it made literary history as the first winning novel of the award then known as the Booker Prize for Fiction.

The novel follows Townrow, an Englishman in Port Said whose memory and sense of reality are unsettled after a violent attack. Its setting draws on the political atmosphere surrounding the 1956 Suez Crisis, giving the book a distinctly historical and psychologically disorienting backdrop.

Newby was an unusual first winner: writing was not his only career, since he was also a senior BBC radio executive. Something to Answer For was his 17th novel. It defeated a shortlist that included works by Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark.

A common mix-up is the prize money. The inaugural winner received £5,000, not the £50,000 awarded to today’s Booker winner. The first trophy was also distinctive: it was designed by Jan Pieńkowski, later famous for the Meg and Mog children’s books.