Gillian Anderson exuded sophistication at the Booker Prize 2024 winners’ event, wearing a stunning dark red dress that highlighted her elegant style. She was joined by fellow actor Charles Dance, who also made a notable appearance at the prestigious occasion. The pair added a touch of glamour to the evening, as the event celebrated the literary achievements of the year’s winning author.
At the Booker Prize 2024 winners’ event held at Old Billingsgate, 56-year-old Gillian Anderson looked stunning in a beautiful dark red dress. She paired the dress with strappy black heels to elevate her look and styled her blonde hair pulled back, completing her sophisticated appearance for the prestigious literary occasion.
At the Booker Prize 2024 winners’ event, actor Charles Dance, 78, looked dashing in a black suit paired with a patterned scarf, making a refined appearance alongside the evening’s celebrated figures.
British author Samantha Harvey made history as the first woman since 2019 to win the prestigious Booker Prize. Her novel Orbital, which explores astronauts observing Earth from space, was awarded the £50,000 prize and trophy during the ceremony in the City of London. Harvey, a former longlistee for her debut novel The Wilderness in 2009, became the 19th woman to win since the award’s inception in 1969, with 36 male winners.
The Queen was quick to congratulate Harvey, having met her earlier in the day, and praised the novel as “brilliant.”
Overwhelmed by her unexpected victory, Harvey took the stage, expressing her astonishment: “I have no idea how to deal with this. I did not expect it. I’m completely overwhelmed.” She dedicated her win to “everybody who speaks for, and not against, the Earth, for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life, and all the people who work for peace.”
In her speech, she acknowledged the world’s imperfections, stating, “No Booker speech has ever been made in a perfect world, and it’s hard not to acknowledge the imperfections of the world we live in today.”
Five years ago, the Booker Prize was awarded jointly to two women: British author Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other and Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood for her sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments. The 2024 Booker Prize marks a return to British talent, with Glasgow-born Douglas Stuart winning in 2020 for Shuggie Bain.
At this year’s star-studded ceremony, author Samantha Harvey joined a distinguished guest list that included Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance, Sara Pascoe, Sir Lenny Henry, Ruth Jones, and TV historian David Olusoga.
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, praised Orbital as “hopeful, timely and timeless,” highlighting the novel’s exploration of a planet shaped by “the sheer amazing force of human want” and its perspective of Earth as an “unbounded place” with no visible barriers. She emphasized the novel’s relevance in a year marked by geopolitical crisis and environmental concerns, describing its themes of interconnectedness and the fragility of life on Earth.
Harvey, whose fascination with the beauty of Earth was sparked by watching the International Space Station’s live camera feeds, explained that Orbital is a “space pastoral” where characters are part of the imagery rather than the lens itself. She aimed to capture both the beauty and the “unnerving fact of its aloneness.” Set over 24 hours, the novel follows six astronauts aboard the ISS, grappling with personal loss and the fragility of life, all while witnessing 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets.
Harvey, a Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, wrote the book during the successive lockdowns, a time that deeply influenced the novel’s themes of isolation and human connection.
Samantha Harvey shared with Radio 4’s Front Row that her novel Orbital resonated with the experience of lockdown, as she was writing about six people trapped in a confined space on the International Space Station. She reflected, “It felt like there was something resonant about that and our experience of lockdown, of not being able to escape each other and also not being able to get to other people.”
This year, the Booker Prize saw a record number of women shortlisted, with five nominated in total. Orbital stood out as the best-selling book of the shortlist, with 29,000 copies sold in the UK this year. It is also the second-shortest Booker winner, just behind Penelope Fitzgerald’s Offshore, which won in 1979. In addition to the Booker Prize, Orbital has also won the 2024 InWords Literary Award and the 2024 Hawthornden Prize for Literature.
