Before Tuesday night, the author Samantha Harvey had got used to thinking of herself as a bit of an underdog. “It’s not out of self-pity, but I definitely saw myself as being on the periphery,” she says.

British author Samantha Harvey has won the Booker Prize for her novel "Orbital," which focuses on six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Most bets were on Percival Everett’s “James,” but the judges chose Harvey’s “beautiful, miraculous” novel, which is set aboard a space station.