SOURCE: THE HINDU

British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday (November 12, 2024) with Orbital, a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International Space Station.

Ms. Harvey was awarded the £50,000 (₹53.7 lakh) prize for what she has called a “space pastoral” about six astronauts circling the Earth, which she began writing during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The confined characters loop through 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets over the course of a day, trapped in one another's company and transfixed by the globe's fragile beauty.