British Writer Samantha Harvey Wins 2024 Booker Prize

British author Samantha Harvey won the prestigious Booker Prize for her novel 'Orbital'. Harvey is the first woman to win the award since 2019. The 136-page long story is about a day in the life of six astronauts on board the International Space Station.

The judging chair, Edmund de Waal, said that Harvey's Orbital was chosen unanimously as the winner. The author received £50,000 and a trophy, which was presented to her by Paul Lynch, last year’s winner, at a ceremony held in London. Orbital has been the biggest-selling book on the shortlist in the UK and has sold more copies than the past three Booker Prize winners combined had sold up to the eve of their success. It is worth mentioning that Orbital is the first Booker Prize-winning book set in space. She was previously longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009 for her debut novel, The Wilderness. The Booker Prize is the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction. 

"Orbital is our book. Samantha Harvey has written a novel propelled by the beauty of sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. Everyone and no one is the subject, as six astronauts in the International Space Station circle the earth observing the passages of weather across the fragility of borders and time zones," said the Chair of the 2024 judges. "With her language of lyricism and acuity Harvey makes our world strange and new for us," added Edmund de Waal in the statement.