In November 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for
hernovelOrbital. This is the second time that Harvey has been
recognised for her work – in 2009, she was longlisted for her
novel,The Wilderness. Harveyis also the author of the novels
All is Song,Dear Thief andThe WesternWind,and a work of
non-fiction,The Shapeless Unease: A Year of NotSleeping.
She has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award, the
Women’s Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Walter
ScottPrize.The Wildernesswas awarded the Betty Trask Prize.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Life on our planet as you’ve never seen it before.
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.
The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
WATCH AN INTERVIEW WITH SAMANTHA HARVEY
The author ofOrbital, winner of the Booker Prize 2024, on writing about space with the care of a nature writer, and the book that made her want to be a novelist
WILL POULTER READS FROM ORBITAL
Orbital is out now.
