British writer Samantha Harvey on Tuesday won the prestigious Booker Prize for her science-fiction novel following six astronauts as they orbit Earth over 24 hours.
Set aboard the International Space Station, Harvey’s Orbital tracks two men and four women from Japan, Russia, the US, Britain and Italy as they observe and reflect on their home planet, touching on themes of mourning, desire and the climate crisis.
The Booker, which comes with a ￡50,000 (US$63,700) cash prize, has launched careers and courted controversy since its creation in 1969.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Past laureates include Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes and Kazuo Ishiguro.
“I was not expecting that,” Harvey said upon learning of her win, the first by a woman since Atwood was recognized for The Testaments alongside Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, adding that she was “overwhelmed.”
In her acceptance speech, Harvey dedicated the prize to “everybody who does speak for and not against the Earth; for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life; and all the humans who speak for and call for and work for peace.”
Just 136 pages long, Orbital is the second-shortest novel to win the award and the first to be set in space, the Booker Prize Foundation said.
It is 49-year-old Harvey’s fifth novel, winning 15 years after her debut novel, The Wilderness, was longlisted for the Booker.
Chair of the judges, Edmund de Waal, said that “everyone and no one is the subject” of Harvey’s novel, “as six astronauts in the International Space Station circle the earth observing the passages of weather across the fragility of borders and time zones.”
“With her language of lyricism and acuity, Harvey makes our world strange and new for us,” he added.
A record five women were in the running for the prize, which was announced at a ceremony in London.
The others were Rachel Kushner for Creation Lake, Anne Michaels for Held, Yael van der Wouden for The Safekeep and Charlotte Wood for Stone Yard Devotional.
Percival Everett’s James rounded out the shortlist.
The prize is seen as a talent spotter of names not necessarily widely known to the general public.
The Booker is open to works of fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland between Oct. 1 last year and Sept. 30.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS