Over the moon: Samantha Harvey’s Orbital wins Booker

Samantha Harvey has won the prestigious honour for her book which follows six astronauts from Japan, Russia, the United States, Britain and Italy aboard the International Space Station and touches on mourning, desire and climate change.

British writer Samantha Harvey has won the Booker Prize.

British writer Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize for her fifth novel, Orbital, a book set on an international space station.

The astronauts experience sixteen sunrises, and sixteen sunsets. The novel explores the preciousness of earth and the mysteriousness of human existence.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize

Harvey, one of five women on a shortlist of six, was overwhelmed by the announcement, saying: “We were told that we weren’t allowed to swear in our speech. So there goes my speech. Just one swear word, 150 times.

“Gosh. I have no idea how to deal with this,” she added. “I am completely overwhelmed.”

The judging chair, the author Edmund de Waal, said the prize recognised “the beauty and ambition” of Orbital, adding that all the books on the shortlist “profoundly enriched us.”

It was the first time in the Booker Prize’s 55-year history that the shortlist included five women, and just one man.

Booker Prize 2024 shortlisted authors (From L to R) Dutch writer Yael van der Wouden, US writer Rachel Kushner, Canadian writer Anne Michaels, Australian Writer Charlotte Wood, US writer Percival Everett and British writer Samantha Harvey pose with British journalist Gaby Wood (2nd L), Britain's Queen Camilla (C) and British artist Edmund de Waal (R) during a reception for the Booker Prize Foundation at Clarence House.

Australian writer Charlotte Wood was on the shortlist for her quiet and beautiful novel, Stone Yard Devotional, about a woman who retreats beyond the walls of a religious order.

She settles into a new reclusive existence, far from her family and her professional obligations. She is challenged by a plague of mice, and the discovery of the bones of a long-missing religious sister.

No Australian woman has won the Booker, although Kate Grenville, Gail Jones and Madeleine St John have been nominated.

The prizes were announced at a ceremony in London. The trophy was presented by last year’s winner, Paul Lynch.

The Booker Prize is an award for fiction written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

Australian writer Charlotte Wood poses with her book Stone Yard Devotional.

The short-listed books in 2024 were:

James by Percival Everett

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Held by Anne Michaels

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

Female writers have won the prize 20 times since its inception in 1969. Everett was short-listed in 2022 for The Trees, and Kushner was short-listed in 2018 for The Mars Room.

It was Wood’s first time on the Booker shortlist, but an earlier novel The Natural Way of Things won the Stella Prize for women writers. Stone Yard Devotional was also short-listed for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, and various premiers’ awards.

Some themes emerged during this year’s prize: five of the books could be considered quite short, at around 300 pages or fewer.