Booker anthem for Space Pastoral; Samantha Harvey's 'Orbital' wins Booker Prize

LONDON: British author Samantha Harvey, 45, has won the Booker Prize for her short novel 'Orbital', which made literature an intense experience in space orbit across the Earth.

The prize money is £50,000 (Rs 53 lakh). Samantha Harvey is the first woman to win the Booker since 2019 and the 18th woman to win the Booker.

Samantha Harvey wrote the novel during the COVID-19 lockdown. In the novel, Samantha sits in a closed room, imagining herself in space and looking at the earth. The theme is the one-day life experiences of six fictional travellers on a space station. The characters are tourists from the United States, Russia, Italy, Japan and Britain. The space station travels at an altitude of 400 kmph at a speed of 28,000 kmph and experiences 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in 24 hours. The death of loved ones on earth... Natural disasters... It's all an intense experience for them... The desire to return to the lap of Mother Earth becomes overwhelming...

The novel is relevant in the context of the experiences of Indian-origin Sunita Williams, who is still trapped in space.

136 page Space Pastoral

'Orbital' is the second shortest novel that has ever achieved a booker. Penelope Fitzgerald's 132-page 'Offshore' in 1979 was the first to set a record.

Samantha's biggest challenge was to imagine herself in space and write. The author had given up writing halfway because she didn't think it would have authenticity. Samantha Harvey said the novel was inspired by video footage of the Earth from the space station.

The author herself describes the novel as "space pastoral". All the five shortlisted candidates were women this time.

Samantha's Books

In 2009, her first novel, 'The Wilderness', made it to the Booker longlist. Orbiter is her fifth novel. Other novels include All Is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind. Samantha has also published a memoir titled 'The Shapeless Unease' about her own insomnia.