British author Samantha Harvey has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for literature. He was given this award for his novel 'Orbital' about space. Orbital won the award as the first book written about space.
According to the report of the British media The Guardian, UK author Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize. The award was announced on Tuesday. It is one of the most prestigious awards for fiction in the UK and worldwide.
A day spent by 6 astronauts on the International Space Station is depicted in detail in the novel 'Orbital'. Of the 6 fictional astronauts mentioned in Orbital, two are men and four are women.
Edmund de Waal, chairperson of the judging panel, said yesterday that the judges had unanimously declared Harvey the Booker Prize winner. Calling it the story of a 'wounded world', Day Wall says that everyone is the subject and no one is the subject in this story of six astronauts orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station, observing the dynamics of weather across the fragile spaces of borders and time zones.
Harvey gave a speech after receiving the award. He said, he is devoting 50,000 pounds of prize money to all the people who stand up for the world, who speak up for the dignity of other people, for other lives, and who are vocal and work to establish peace.
The book 'Orbital' is 136 pages long. It is the second shortest book to win the Booker. It is also the first book on space to win the Booker Prize. Harvey wrote most of the book 'Orbital' during the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Apart from Harvey, there were four other shortlists for the Booker Prize this year. Among them were American author Rachel Kushner—for the book 'Creation Lake'—and Canadian author Anne Michaels—for the book 'Held'.
