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British author Samantha Harvey wins Booker with space story

Yasmin Rufo
BBC News
EPA Samantha Harvey holding Booker Prize awardEPA
Samantha Harvey is the first woman to win the award since 2019

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 it was shared by Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood in 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":[]}