British writer Samantha Harvey wins Booker Prize for space novel Orbital

Judges opportunity grant recognises nan ‘beauty and ambition’ of nan 136-page caller group connected committee nan International Space Station.

British writer Samantha Harvey has been awarded nan 2024 Booker Prize for her “beautifully expansive” caller astir a time successful nan life of six astronauts connected committee nan International Space Station.

Orbital follows 2 men and 4 women arsenic they bespeak connected humanity and nan satellite complete nan people of 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets.

Edmund de Waal, chair of nan judging panel, said connected Tuesday that nan judges were unanimous successful their prime of nan communicative astir a “wounded world”.

“Everyone and nary 1 is nan subject, arsenic six astronauts successful nan International Space Station circle nan Earth watching nan passages of upwind crossed nan fragility of borders and clip zones,” de Waal said.

“With her connection of lyricism and acuity Harvey makes our world unusual and caller for us. All twelvemonth we person celebrated fabrication that inhabits ideas alternatively than declaiming connected issues, not uncovering answers but changing nan mobility of what we wanted to explore. Our unanimity astir Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s bonzer strength of attraction to nan precious and precarious world we share.”

In her acceptance speech, Harvey dedicated nan 50,000-pound ($64,000) prize to “everybody who does speak for and not against nan Earth; for and not against nan dignity of different humans, different life; and each nan humans who speak for and telephone for and activity for peace”.

At 136 pages, Orbital is nan second-shortest book to triumph nan prize and nan first to beryllium group successful space.

Harvey hit retired 4 different short-listed writers for nan prize: Rachel Kushner for Creation Lake, Anne Michaels for Held, Yael van der Wouden for The Safekeep and Charlotte Wood for Stone Yard Devotional.

Harvey, who wrote overmuch of nan caller during nan COVID-19 lockdowns, precocious said of really nan book had astir not seen nan ray of day.

“I wrote a fewer 1000 words, I think, and I mislaid my nerve, I guess,”  Harvey said successful an question and reply pinch nan BBC power programme Front Row earlier this month.

“I thought, ‘Well, I person ne'er been to space. I could ne'er spell to space. There are humans who person been to abstraction who constitute very lucidly astir it. Who americium I to do this?’”

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Al Jazeera and news agencies