York graduate named Booker Prize 2024 winner

Posted on 13 November 2024

University of York graduate, Samantha Harvey, has been named the winner of the Booker Prize 2024 for her novel Orbital.

Samantha Harvey graduated from the University in 1998

Samantha, who studied Philosophy with English at York as an undergraduate, received £50,000 and a trophy, which was presented to her by Paul Lynch, winner of the Booker Prize 2023, at a ceremony held at Old Billingsgate in London.

One of five women on the Booker shortlist this year, she is the first woman to win the prize since 2019. Her novel takes place over a single day in the life of six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station.

Space pastoral

Orbital is the biggest-selling book on the shortlist in the UK, and up until the eve of the prize-giving ceremony, had sold more copies than the past three Booker Prize-winners combined. It is also the first winning novel to be set in space and the second-shortest novel, standing at 136 pages.

Samantha Harvey said of her prize-winning novel: “I thought of it as a space pastoral - a kind of nature writing about the beauty of space. I wanted to write about our human occupation of low earth orbit for the last quarter of a century - not as sci-fi but as realism.”

Beauty and ambition

The Booker Prize is the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction. The prize is open to authors from anywhere in the world, writing in English, and published in the UK and/or Ireland. It has rewarded and celebrated world-class talent for over fifty years, shaping the canon of 20th and 21st century literature.

Chair of the judges, Edmund de Waal, describes the winner as, “a book about a wounded world”, adding that the panel’s “unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition.”

Professor Keith Allen, Head of the University's Department of Philosophy, said: "We are very proud to see what a fantastic career Samantha has had so far, adding this prestigious award to a long line of literary accolades."