With lyrical language, sharp questions and exploratory writing
A grand cosmic idyll unfolding before your eyes

A novel that won the 2024 Booker Prize by a unanimous jury, and was praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anthony Doerr and Emily St. John Mandel, one of today's most notable science fiction writers, and recommended by former President Barack Obama as the "Best Book of 2024."
It is the story of a day in the life of six astronauts orbiting the Earth on a space station.
The strange sensation of witnessing sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets in twenty-four hours, the meaning of seeing the small and ordinary Earth in detail from a spaceship, the pinnacle of cutting-edge engineering, the complete peace and solace that comes when surrendering oneself to the fierce and fierce blackness of space, are rhythmically unfolded in beautiful, lyrical language.


Based on data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) and the actual experiences of astronauts, author Samantha Harvey vividly and delicately portrays life on our planet, a world we have never seen before.
It allows us to step away from this rough and noisy world for a moment, and slowly reflect and ask questions about what humans are doing to the Earth and to our fellow humans.
It sheds light on the new bonds between astronauts who come together as one on a lonely spaceship despite their different nationalities, thoughts, and stories.
Their persistent thoughts, which follow one another as they watch the vast universe as if they were gods, touch upon a giant typhoon engulfing the Philippines, the Amazon with its bare skin exposed by flames, a billionaire's rocket burning 5 billion dollars to reach the moon, and the long trail of light stretching between India and Pakistan.
It awakens us to the fact that we and our loved ones 'live' on this splendid, blue planet, and ignites the spark that inspires us to dream of change.


The author's signature writing style, with its elaborate descriptions and deliberate use of commas and spaces, creates a breathtaking immersion, like the endless succession of continents and oceans as it orbits the Earth, drawing readers deeply into this journey of thought.
With Orbit, Samantha Harvey became the first woman to win the Booker Prize since 2019, and has been called “our modern Virginia Woolf” and “the Melville of the sky.”

One day, when you look at the face of one of the five people, whether smiling, concentrating, or chewing food, you see everything and everyone you have ever loved.
It's all in there.
The humanity condensed into these few people is no longer an indistinguishable, heterogeneous, and distant species.
It is a close and tangible being.

--- p.37

Today, on the fourth orbit, a new morning greets us as dust from the Sahara Desert sweeps into the sea in a belt hundreds of miles long.
The sea sparkles a murky green, the land is a murky orange.
This is Africa, where light resonates.
Even inside a spaceship, it seems like you can hear the sound of light.
Steep gorges radiate across Gran Canaria, stacking the islands like hastily built sandcastles, and where the Atlas Mountains mark the end of the desert, shark-shaped clouds jut their tails out toward the southern coast of Spain.
The tip of its fin pokes south of the Alps, and its snout looks ready to jump into the Mediterranean at any moment.
Albania and Montenegro are soft velvet covered with mountains.

--- p.46

We are raised special as children and then become extremely ordinary.
We realize our nothingness and are overjoyed with our innocent hearts.
If you're not special, at least you won't be alone.
If there are many solar systems like ours, with many planets, then at least one of them must support life.
The feeling of being together comforts our insignificant existence.

--- p.53

This typhoon is getting bigger and bolder than it was 90 minutes ago, and it's getting closer and closer to land.
It's not anger, as people often say.
Looking from here, I don't see anything like anger.
Rather, it is a rebellion and closer to strength and vitality.
A wide-eyed, tongue-sticking expression like a Maori warrior dancing the haka.

--- p.101

When Nell went on a spacewalk last week, she initially felt like she was going to crash.
It was brief, but terrifying.
When the door opens and you emerge from the airlock, struggling to stay still, the only things you can see in space are the space station and Earth.
I told you not to look down.
Until you adapt, just focus on your thoughts and tasks.
But Nell looked down.
How could I not see? The Earth was spinning rapidly beneath my feet.
A surprisingly naked Earth.
The Earth seen here does not appear to be a solid object.
The surface is flowing and shiny.

--- pp.119-120

The excess of electricity at night is breathtaking.
Spreading life.
The Earth declares before the abyss that there is something, someone here.
Yet the sense of warmth and peace prevails because, even at night, only one man-made border is visible in the entire world.
A long, straight line of light between Pakistan and India.
That's all that shows the division of civilization.
But when day comes, even that disappears.

--- pp.125-126

The truly amazing force of human desire shapes the Earth.
That power changed everything.
Forests, polar regions, reservoirs, glaciers, rivers, seas, mountains, coastlines, and skies.
A planet outlined and landscaped according to your desires.

--- p.132

The shiny bead planet sings a brief but very sweet song.
The lights of the Earth sing in chorus.
That light is an ensemble of trillions of objects.
They come together for a brief moment, then disperse again in a loud, jumbled mess of rough and tumble world noise, galactic woodwinds, and tropical rainforest trance music.

--- p.238