The prize recognizes the best novel written in English and published in Britain or Ireland, and comes with a cash prize of 50,000 pounds, or $64,000 Orbital by Samantha Harvey has received the 2024 Booker Prize.

Before Tuesday night, the author Samantha Harvey had got used to thinking of herself as a bit of an underdog. “It’s not out of self-pity, but I definitely saw myself as being on the periphery,” she says.

Samantha Harvey won the prestigious award for a wonder-filled novel, set aboard the International Space Station, that ponders the beauty and fragility of Earth.