Orbital: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner)

Orbital follows six astronauts and cosmonauts from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan as they circle the earth in 24 hours aboard one of the last space station missions before the program is dismantled. The novel captures a single day in their lives as they travel at over seventeen thousand miles per hour. Through brief communications with family, personal photographs, and talismans, readers glimpse moments of their earthly lives. The narrative observes them preparing dehydrated meals, sleeping in gravity-free conditions, and exercising in regimented routines to maintain muscle mass. As they form bonds to counter the isolation of space, they witness sixteen sunrises and sunsets and observe the bright constellations of the galaxy. The novel is a meditation on space and life on Earth, presented through the experiences of these six travelers as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Winner of the Booker Prize 2024, the work is described as a moving elegy to the environment and planet.