Staying On

Staying On

Paul Scott

Published by William Heinemann

1977

Winner

image of the book cover Staying Onimage of the author Paul Scott

Synopsis

In this sequel to The Raj Quartet, Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley stay on in the hills of Pankot after Indian independence deprives them of their colonial status. Finally fed up with accommodating her husband, Lucy claims a degree of independence herself. Eloquent and hilarious, she and Tusker act out class tensions among the British of the Raj and give voice to the loneliness, rage, and stubborn affection in their marriage.

Author Biography

Paul Scott was born in suburban North London in March 1920. At the outbreak of WWII, he enlisted as a private which saw him sent to India as a supply officer in 1943. He served in India and Malaya (1943-1946) and while there he wrote poetry and drama. After a period of time as a bookkeeper he became a literary agent and published a string of novels concerned with British military figures on duty in foreign lands. He began writing full time in 1960 and completed The Raj Quartet in 1974. In 1977 Staying On won the Booker Prize for Fiction. He spent his final years travelling between his Hampstead home and the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma where he was a visiting fellow. He died in 1978.

The Man Booker Prize Fiction at its finest