Samantha Harvey

For other people named Samantha Harvey, see Samantha Harvey (disambiguation).

Samantha Harvey
Harvey in 2019
Born	1975 (age 48–49) Kent, England
Occupation	Novelist
Alma mater	Bath Spa University
Genre	Literary fiction
Years active	2008–present
Notable works	The Wilderness (2009) Orbital (2023)
Notable awards	Betty Trask Prize (2009) Booker Prize (2024)
Website
www.samanthaharvey.co.uk

Samantha Harvey (born 1975) is an English novelist. She won the 2024 Booker Prize for her novel Orbital, which drew on conventions from multiple genres and fields, including literary fiction, science fiction, and philosophy.

Early life and education

Harvey spent the first decade of her life in Ditton, Kent, near Maidstone, until her parents' divorce. After that, her mother moved to Ireland, and Harvey spent her teen years moving around with stints in York, Sheffield, and Japan. Harvey studied philosophy at the University of York and the University of Sheffield. She completed the Bath Spa University Creative Writing MA course in 2005, and has also completed a PhD in creative writing.

Career

Harvey performing a headstand on stage at the 2014 Wigtown Book Festival

Her first novel, The Wilderness (2009), is written from the point of view of a man developing Alzheimer's disease, and describes through increasingly fractured prose the unravelling effect of the disease. Her second novel, All Is Song (2012), is about moral and filial duty, and about the choice between questioning and conforming. The author has described the novel as a loose, modern day reimagining of the life of Socrates.

Her third novel, Dear Thief, is a long letter from a woman to her absent friend, detailing the emotional fallout of a love triangle. The novel is said to be based on the Leonard Cohen song "Famous Blue Raincoat". Dear Thief was published in 2014 by Jonathan Cape. Harvey's fourth novel, The Western Wind, about a priest in fifteenth-century Somerset, was published in March 2018.

The Shapeless Unease, her only work of non-fiction, is an account of her experience of severe insomnia. Her 2023 novel, Orbital, won the 2024 Booker Prize.It takes place on a space station over one day of low earth orbits, and was described by Mark Haddon as "one of the most beautiful novels I have read in a very long time".

Her short stories have appeared in Granta and on BBC Radio 4. She reviews for The Guardian and The New York Times, and has contributed essays and articles to The New Yorker, The Telegraph, The Guardian, and Time. Her radio appearances include on Radio 4's Front Row, Open Book, A Good Read and Start the Week, and Radio 3's Free Thinking.

On stage with Petina Gappah and Lee Randall at the 2015 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Harvey's novels have been considered for many prizes, including the Man Booker Prize, the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Walter Scott Prize, and the Orange Prize. In 2010, she was named one of the 12 best new British novelists by The Culture Show. In 2019, The Western Wind won the Staunch Book Prize.

Harvey is published in the UK by Jonathan Cape and in the US by Grove Atlantic. She is represented by the literary agent Anna Webber.

Harvey is a Reader on the MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University and a member of the academy for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and is as of 2023 acting as a mentor for the Rathbones Folio Mentorships. She was a member of the jury for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has held writing fellowships at MacDowell in the US, Hawthornden in Scotland, and the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Italy.

She teaches regularly for Arvon Foundation, and runs writing courses annually in Spain with the author Emma Hooper.

Accolades

Harvey's writing has been compared to that of Virginia Woolf.

Nominations and prizes

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
2009	The Wilderness	AMI Literature AwardThe Times of India	—	Won
		Betty Trask Prize and Awards	Betty Trask Prize	Won
		Guardian First Book Award	—	Shortlisted
		Man Booker Prize	—	Longlisted
		Orange Prize for Fiction	—	Shortlisted
2015	Dear Thief	Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction	—	Longlisted
		James Tait Black Memorial Prize	Fiction	Shortlisted
		Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize	—	Longlisted
2018	The Western Wind	HWA Crown Award	Gold Crown	Longlisted
2019		Staunch Book Prize	—	Won
		Walter Scott Prize	—	Shortlisted
2020		International Dublin Literary Award	—	Longlisted
2024	Orbital	Booker Prize	—	Won
		Hawthornden Prize	—	Won
		The InWords Literary Award	—	Won
		Orwell Prize	Political Fiction	Shortlisted
		Ursula K. Le Guin Prize	—	Shortlisted

Bibliography

Novels

• —— (2009). The Wilderness. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9780224086073.
• —— (2012). All Is Song. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9780224096324.
• —— (2014). Dear Thief. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9780224101721.
• —— (2018). The Western Wind. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9781787330597.
• —— (2023). Orbital. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9781787334342.

Non-fiction

• —— (2020). The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9781787332027.

Translations

Harvey's novels have been translated into Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Norwegian, Portuguese and Romanian.

External links

• Official website