Frontpage Insights: Booker explains the importance of life through 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in 24 hours to Orbital, a short novel depicting the beauty of Earth from space.

Britain's Samantha Harvey has won the 2024 Booker Prize for her short novel 'Orbital'. The novel tells the story of a day spent on the International Space Station (ISS), which he wrote during the Covid-19 lockdown. This, Harvey's fifth novel, was the best-selling book on the shortlist of six finalists. Not only that, it sold more copies than the last three Booker Prize winners combined.

According to critics, readers loved his depiction of the beauty of Earth as seen from space. The Booker judges described the novel as 'beautiful and comical'. Edmond de Waal, one of the judges' panel, said, “Harvey presents our world to us in strange and new ways. At the time, Harvey said while accepting the award that he had given up writing Orbital after writing 5000 words. He wondered why anyone would read a space story written by a woman on a desk. I thought, I don't have the right to write this book,” Harvey said. He continued, “This honor is dedicated to all people who speak for the Earth, not against it, for the dignity of other human beings, for the dignity of other beings, and for peace.”

Earlier his first novel 'Wilderness' published in 2008 was discussed for its different subject matter and was nominated for various international awards including the Booker.

'Orbital' is actually just a 24 hour story of 6 astronauts from Japan, Russia, America, Britain and Italy. Astronauts experience 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in that time.

In this short novel, the author has given information about the responsibilities and struggles of the passengers on board the space craft. Incidents like scissors slipping out of hands, food flying out of an auto-dispenser may seem commonplace, but only an astronaut can tell you how difficult it is to contend with. In the novel, Samantha has tried to draw attention to the importance of life, nature, conflicts and dangers arising from the boundaries between different countries.

Best-selling book in Britain this year Orbital was published in November, 2023 and is the best selling book of 2024 in Britain. It has 136 pages. No single chapter of a novel is more than 400 words. The shortest book ever to win the Booker Prize is Penelope Fitzgerald's 132-page 'Offshore'. He won the Booker in 1979.