British writer wins Booker for space story Orbital

Britain’s Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize for her novel Orbital, a story about a single day aboard the International Space Station, which she wrote during COVID-19 lockdowns. The novel, Harvey’s fifth, was the top selling book on...

Reuters

London, Updated At : 07:32 AM Nov 14, 2024 IST

Samantha Harvey speaks on stage after winning the Booker Prize, in London. AP

Britain’s Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize for her novel Orbital, a story about a single day aboard the International Space Station, which she wrote during COVID-19 lockdowns.

The novel, Harvey’s fifth, was the top selling book on the shortlist of six finalists and has sold more copies than the past three Booker Prize winners combined, as readers lapped up her depiction of earth’s beauty as seen from space.

Judges of the prize, now in its 55th year, praised her writing for the “intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world”. Past winners of the prestigious Booker, which is open to works of fiction written in English, include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel.

Harvey said she wrote the novel while stuck at home during the pandemic watching footage of the earth in low orbit on her screen.

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Remembering Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia

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