British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on November 12 with "Orbital", a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International Space Station that ponders the beauty and fragility of Earth.

• Harvey was awarded the £50,000 ($64,000) prize for what she has called a “space pastoral” about six orbiting astronauts, which she began writing during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
• The confined characters loop through 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets over the course of a day, trapped in one another’s company and transfixed by the globe’s ever-changing vistas.
• Last year’s winner was Irish writer Paul Lynch for post-democratic dystopia Prophet Song.
• Lynch handed Harvey her Booker trophy at the ceremony, warning her that her life was about to change dramatically because of the Booker publicity boost.