Samantha Harvey talks to Ben Lawrence

Winner of the 2024 Booker Prize Samantha Harvey talks about her winning novel, Orbital, a story that takes place over a single day in the life of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The astronauts conduct experiments and test the limits of their bodies. However, they mostly observe the planet Earth as they circle it 16 times, crossing continents and cycling through the seasons. They discuss the fragility of life and their fears and dreams and begin to ask what is life without Earth and what is Earth without humanity?

‘Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share.’ Edmund de Waal, chair of the Booker judging panel

‘I thought of it as space pastoral – a kind of nature writing about the beauty of space’ Samantha Harvey

Orbital was the biggest selling book on the Booker shortlist, outselling the three previous Booker winners combined in the run-up to the award. It is Harvey’s fifth novel. Her others are The Wilderness, All is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind. She is also author of a work of non-fiction Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping. Here she talks to Ben Lawrence, arts editor at The Telegraph.