Orbit

Author Samantha Harvey · Publisher Seohae Munji · Published 2025-06-20 · ISBN 9791194413394

About the Book

★2024 Booker Prize Winner
★2024 Hawthornden Prize Winner
★Barack Obama’s Favorite Book of 2024
★Selected as Book of the Year by The Guardian, Financial Times, and Oprah Daily
★New York Times Bestseller, Booklist Editor’s Choice
★Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, and 2024 Climate Fiction Prize

“A marvelous, truly wonderful novel.” — Anthony Doerr (Author of All the Light We Cannot See, Cloud Cuckoo Land)
“I didn't want it to end.” — Emily St. John Mandel (Author of Sea of Tranquility)
“This miraculous novel that makes the world strange and new... is worth reading slowly.” — Edmund de Waal (Booker Prize Chair of Judges)

This novel, which unanimously won the 2024 Booker Prize, was praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr and acclaimed by Emily St. John Mandel, one of today's most prominent sci-fi writers, and recommended by former President Barack Obama as "the best book of 2024." It tells the story of a day in the life of six astronauts orbiting Earth in a space station. Based on data from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) and the real-life experiences of astronauts, author Samantha Harvey vividly and delicately describes daily life on the spaceship and our planet as never seen before. Inside the module, where forks, screws, wires, and inflated sleeping bags float, astronauts collect meteorological data and conduct scientific experiments. Harvey rhythmically unfolds the endlessly black universe, dense stars, and a Earth muddled with lilac, orange, almond, light purple, white, and red in beautiful, lyrical language.

The profound beauty of space, life, and nature
Bonds re-emerging in complete solitude
A self-portrait of humanity drawn by those who have become one with Earth's breath

The perspective of the orbiting astronauts evokes a vicarious experience. These are things that can only be experienced when observing Earth from a god-like position. The peculiar moments of facing sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets in twenty-four hours, the meaning of seeing the immensely small and ordinary Earth in detail from a spaceship, the pinnacle of cutting-edge engineering, and the complete peace and comfort that comes when one entrusts oneself to the fierce and violent darkness during a spacewalk.

The novel juxtaposes astronauts calmly observing Earth with islanders swept helplessly by massive typhoons, and humans who antagonize and kill each other, their borders glittering at night, with continents that rush into each other like overgrown gardens, erasing all boundaries during the day. Following the wondrous and enchanting landscapes of Earth, the reflections of the six astronauts expand to include the Amazon, where bare skin is visible through flames, the vast ocean dimming after losing its blue hue, a billionaire's rocket launched with 5 billion dollars, and the sparse city lights of Africa.

Though separated from the world, the astronauts are continuously drawn back to Earth. The fragility of human life experienced in space fills their conversations, fears, and dreams. Far from Earth, they feel more protected than ever before. They begin to ask: What is life without Earth? What is Earth without humanity? In this new era of space travel, how are we writing the future of humanity? Is politics merely an absurd, foolish, and insane show? Can humanity's power to care for each other and cooperate to achieve high levels of progress overcome the desire for infinite growth and consumption?

We do not know how they lived or what interesting events occurred on their spaceship. Orbit simply plunges the reader into the complete solitude of space, giving them a strange sensation that makes the world they have always known seem unfamiliar. That sensation awakens the realization that we and our loved ones "live" on a brilliant, blue Earth, sparking a desire for change. The author's unique writing, characterized by intricate descriptions and intentional pauses and blank spaces, creates a breathtaking immersion, like the endless succession of glaciers, deserts, and seasons outside the spaceship window, drawing the reader deeply into this journey of contemplation.

Table of Contents

24 Hours in Earth Orbit When the Northern Hemisphere is Day
Acknowledgements