Heavens above! Finally, a Booker prizewinner that we can all get behind. Samantha Harvey, 49, is both the first English and the first female winner of the Booker prize since Bernadine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other in 2019 — and the first English author to win the prize outright since Hilary Mantel for Bring Up the Bodies in 2012.
More important than her nationality or her gender, however, is the fact that Orbital is one of the most original novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s bold, it’s scintillating and it’s gloriously imaginative. In fact, it makes the whole issue of national identities feel small and far away and puts humanity into a brave new perspective. It’s set over 24 hours on the International