The 2024 Booker Prize has awarded Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, a landmark achievement for British literature. Set aboard the International Space Station, the novel examines themes of human aspiration, fragility, and the beauty of our planet. Harvey was the only British author shortlisted this year and emerged as the unanimous choice of the judging panel, chaired by artist and author Edmund de Waal. The panel praised Orbital for its “beauty and ambition,” with de Waal remarking that the novel reflects an “extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share.”
Orbital follows six fictional astronauts over a single day as they experience 16 sunrises and sunsets from space. This compact, 136-page novel—the second-shortest book in history to win the Booker, trailing only Penelope Fitzgerald’s Offshore from 1979—captivated judges and readers alike with its lyrical and meditative portrayal of life beyond Earth.
In her acceptance speech, Harvey was visibly surprised and joked about almost abandoning the project: “Why on earth would anybody want to hear from a woman at her desk in Wiltshire writing about space, imagining what it’s like being in space when people have actually been there?” Harvey expressed gratitude to those who “speak for and not against the Earth, for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life, and all the people who speak for, and call for, and work for peace.”
Harvey was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2009 for her debut novel The Wilderness and has been recognized for her powerful storytelling across five novels, as well as her 2020 memoir The Shapeless Unease, an exploration of insomnia. The author dedicated her win to a commitment to protect the Earth, stating that the book’s theme of shared human vulnerability is a message: “We need it now more than ever.”
As Orbital became the highest-selling book from the shortlist in the lead-up to the prize announcement, with nearly 29,000 copies sold in the UK, the Booker Foundation described it as a timely story, with Gaby Wood, chief executive of the foundation, stating that Orbital addresses urgent global issues in what is predicted to be the warmest year on record, exploring “a planet shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want,” and reflecting on “an unbounded place with no wall or barrier visible from space.”
Orbital had been one of the favorites to win, alongside Percival Everett’s James, a reinterpretation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. Everett’s novel, which was the bookmakers’ favorite at Ladbrokes, was the only work on the shortlist authored by a man, marking the first time in The Booker’s 55-year history that five of the six finalists were women. The other shortlisted authors included Rachel Kushner for Creation Lake, Anne Michaels for Held, Yael van der Wouden for The Safekeep, and Charlotte Wood for Stone Yard Devotional.
The judging panel, consisting of de Waal, novelist Sara Collins, musician Nitin Sawhney, Guardian fiction editor Justine Jordan, and novelist Yiyun Li, spent a full day deliberating before reaching a unanimous decision. “We were determined to find a book that moved us,” de Waal explained. “A book that had capaciousness and resonance that we are compelled to share. We wanted everything. Orbital is our book.”
De Waal went on to emphasize that the panel’s choice of orbital was not influenced by any specific agendas regarding book length, author background, or gender.
The Booker Prize Foundation held the award ceremony at Old Billingsgate in the City of London, with Harvey receiving £50,000 and a trophy. She expressed her excitement about using the prize money for a new bike and a trip to Japan.
In a year marked by global turmoil and climate crises, the judges were drawn to Harvey’s message of planetary stewardship and unity. “With her language of lyricism and acuity, Harvey makes our world strange and new for us,” de Waal remarked. “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.”
Orbital joins a distinguished list of past Booker Prize winners, including Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, and Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. As the 19th woman to receive the Booker Prize since its inception, Harvey’s win marks a significant moment for British literature and a call for collective responsibility to protect our shared world.
