British author Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize award with her novel Orbital, the first book set in space to win the prize.
Orbital contemplates the world from a different viewpoint as it follows a team of astronauts in the International Space Station.
It’s the biggest-selling book on the shortlist in the UK, and has also outsold the past three Booker winners combined, up to the eve of their success.
Harvey, the first woman to win the award since 2019, was announced as winner at a ceremony in London’s Old Billingsgate, and will take home £50,000.
She dedicated the prize to “all the people who speak for and not against the earth and work for and not against peace”.
She said she questioned herself while writing the book: “Why would anybody want to hear from a woman at her desk in Wiltshire writing about space when people have actually been there?”
“I lost my nerve with it and I thought I didn’t have the authority to write it.”
Speaking to BBC News, Harvey said she was “in complete shock and very overwhelmed”. She added that the award would change her life.
Asked how she would spend the £50,000 prize money, she said: “I need to buy myself a new bike, and it’s going to be a good bike.”