Samantha Harvey becomes the first woman to win the Booker Prize in five years with ‘Orbital’ as she joins celebrity hosts at the 2024 awards ceremony
British writer Samantha Harvey is the first woman since 2019 to win the Booker Prize.
Her book Orbital, about astronauts looking at Earth, was named winner of the £50,000 prize and trophy at a ceremony in Old Billingsgate in the City of London.
Harvey, who was longlisted for the prestigious literary prize in 2009 for her debut novel The Wilderness, is the 19th woman to win since the first prize in 1969. There have been 36 male winners.
Five years ago, the gong went jointly to two women: British author Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other and Canadian writer Margaret Atwood for the sequel The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments.
It was last won by a British author when Glasgow-born Douglas Stuart was named winner of the 2020 Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain.
Gaby Wood, CEO of the Booker Prize Foundation, said: ‘Orbital wins the prize in a year of geopolitical crisis, probably the hottest year in history.
Samantha Harvey’s book Orbital, about astronauts looking at Earth, was named winner of the £50,000 prize and trophy at a ceremony in Old Billingsgate in the City of London
Harvey, who was longlisted for the prestigious literary prize in 2009 for her debut novel The Wilderness, is the 19th woman to win since the first prize in 1969. Pictured: in conversation with Queen Camilla earlier today
Set over the span of 24 hours, with 16 orbits around the Earth, Harvey’s novel concerns the death of a loved one, an approaching typhoon and the fragility of human life.
‘A book about a planet ‘shaped by the sheer astonishing power of human need’, about a ‘limitless place’ without wall or barrier visible from space, with all politics ‘an attack on its softness’. It is hopeful, current and timeless.’
This year a record number of women were shortlisted for the Booker, with a total of five nominees.
Artist and jury chairman Edmund de Waal was asked about the optics of the only man on the list, Percival Everett, winning for James, a powerful retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of the enslaved Jim.
Mr de Waal rejected the suggestion, saying that “there was no doubt that anyone could have won this, regardless of their background, their gender, their ethnicity, whatever, absolutely anyone.”
“There was absolutely no ticking of boxes, agendas or anything else in the room,” he added.
“It was just about a novel.”
At 136 pages, Orbital is the second-shortest Booker winner, just behind Penelope Fitzgerald’s Offshore, which won the 1979 prize.
Set over the span of 24 hours, with 16 orbits around the Earth, Harvey’s novel concerns the death of a loved one, an approaching typhoon and the fragility of human life.
Samantha Harvey attends the 2024 Booker Prize winners ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London
Yael van der Wouden, Rachel Kushner, Anne Michaels, Queen Camilla, Charlotte Wood, Percival Everett and Samantha Harvey at a reception for the Booker Prize Foundation at Clarence House
Shortlisted books on display at a reception for The Booker Prize Foundation at Clarence House
Mr De Waal said: ‘As judges we were determined to find a book that moved us, a book with great space and resonance, that we wanted to share.
‘We wanted everything. Orbital is our book.
“Samantha Harvey has written a novel powered by the beauty of sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets.
‘Everyone and no one is the subject as six astronauts orbit the Earth on the International Space Station, observing the weather changes across the fragility of borders and time zones.
‘With her language of lyricism and sharpness, Harvey makes our world strange and new to us.
“All year we’ve been celebrating fiction that embodies ideas rather than declaiming on issues, not finding answers but changing the question of what we set out to explore.
‘Our unanimity on Orbital recognizes its beauty and ambition.
“It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share.”
This year’s judges all agreed on the choice, including novelist Sara Collins, The Guardian fiction editor Justine Jordan, Chinese-born professor and A Thousand Years Of Good Prayers writer Yiyun Li and musician, composer and producer Nitin Sawhney, who has worked with Sir Paul McCartney and won an Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement Gong.
Earlier on Tuesday, the shortlisted authors – Yael van der Wouden, Rachel Kushner, Anne Michaels, Charlotte Wood, Everett and Harvey – attended a reception with the Queen, her first public appearance since falling ill with a respiratory infection.
Last year’s winner was Irish author Paul Lynch with his dystopian novel Prophet Song.
This is a groundbreaking story, more to come.
