British author Samantha Harvey has won this year’s Booker Prize with her book Orbital.
The novel, which is about astronauts on the International Space Station as they orbit the Earth, was announced as the winner at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in the City of London on Tuesday.
It has sold around 29,000 copies – more than the last three Booker winners combined had managed before they won.
Accepting the trophy, Harvey dedicated it to everybody who “speaks for and not against the earth” and “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”.
The former museum worker turned author said before winning that she would like to spend the £50,000 prize money on taking time out of her job to sculpt, and waste some of it on buying “expensive Danish liquorice”.
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 award in 1969. There have been 36 male winners.
Admitting that she nearly gave up writing the novel altogether, Harvey said: “I lost my nerve with it.
“[I] originally thought, ‘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’.”
Taking place over a 24-hour time frame as astronauts orbit the Earth 16 times, Orbital is the second-shortest book to claim the prize at 136 pages long.
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Artist and chairman of the judges Edmund de Waal described the book as one that “compelled” the judging panel.
“We were determined to find a book that moved us, a book that had capaciousness and resonance, that we are compelled to share,” he said.
“We wanted everything. Orbital is our book. With her language of lyricism and acuity, Harvey makes our world strange and new for us.
“Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition.”
This year, a record number of women were shortlisted for the Booker, with five nominated in total.
Earlier on Tuesday, all the shortlisted authors – Yael van der Wouden, Rachel Kushner, Anne Michaels, Charlotte Wood, Percival Everett and Harvey – attended a reception with the Queen, her first public engagement since falling ill with a chest infection.
A post on the royal family X account later shared a statement from Queen Camilla which congratulated Harvey on her win.