Its chief claim to fame is that in 1969 it won the inaugural Booker Prize, which would go on to become one of the major literary awards in the English-speaking world.

He stops over in Rome where he converses with an Israeli journalist who accuses the British government of failing to prevent the Holocaust.

In Cairo, Townrow makes a joke about marrying Mrs Khoury for her money to an immigration officer, which leads to him being interrogated.

Townrow walks through scenes of mob unrest, is arrested as a spy, and watches bloody gunfights between Egyptian and British troops with bemused detachment.

At the end of the novel, though it is uncertain how much of what was related actually took place or how much was a fever or drunken dream, Townrow comes to believe that a citizen is not responsible for the morality of his government and has only himself and his own actions to answer for.