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Orbital
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 • NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours
"Ravishingly beautiful." — Joshua Ferris, New York Times
A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.
Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.
More Books from Samantha Harvey
Reviews
A book like very few others. Compares to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and her description of the total eclipse in Holy the Finn. Shines with the beauty of Cormac McCarthy’s prose without the weight of blood and impending violence. Magnificent.
By Lou Vest
I always hated Michener’s books for being overly descriptive, to the point of letting the minutiae overtake the plot. The same goes for this book which is both overly detailed and plotless. This is less a novel than a meditation. There is almost zero interaction between the characters—instead each astronaut has an internal struggle that space may or may not be able to help them resolve. Thank god this was a short book. At least I didn’t feel I wasted too much of my time.
By Sabrina Alfin
Never seen before perspective, thought provoking and brilliant
By Adi310
Un libro muy interesante, lleno de filosofía y de ideas sociopolíticas, un poco entre el ensayo y la novela, entre lo científico y la ficción. Entre órbita y órbita, ascendiendo o descendiendo siempre muy interesante el problema de la soledad estando en compañía, la lejanía que te hace estar más cerca. La romántica luna, que no es de queso y a donde, como meta final se llega.
By Eva Palomares
Beautiful. I never had an interest in Space but I do now.
By No names thanks