British author Samantha Harvey has won the Booker Prize for her novel "Orbital," which focuses on six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

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.