Samantha Harvey: "Even from outer space we can see how we are destroying our planet"

BarcelonaSince won the Booker Prize thanks to Orbital, Samantha Harvey's (Kent, 1975) diary has been filling up, and for now it is almost a feat to get to speak to her. Even so, the English author lives far from the media pressure, and not even the literary award, one of the most prestigious today, has managed to get her to buy a mobile phone. She speaks to us from the 16th century house where she lives, on the outskirts of Bath. It was there that she wrote her latest novel, in which she recounts a single day in the life of six astronauts on the International Space Station. While they orbit the Earth, the characters in the novel areOrbital (Edicions 62 / Anagrama; Catalan translation by Ernest Riera) concentrate on their jobs – such as cultivating protein crystals, monitoring microbes or investigating muscle decline –, they remember why they wanted to travel to outer space and, above all, they gaze in wonder at the unique and fragile planet.

Although technology does not particularly interest you, you have written a novel about one of the places where it is indispensable, the International Space Station. It is a bit of a paradox.

— For me, it's not a paradox. This novel is about outer space and a place where cutting-edge technology is very important, the International Space Station, but I think I started writing it with an escapist intention. I needed to escape from our frenetic world and look at planet Earth from a distance. This allowed me to study it more clearly and calmly.

Here he has physically distanced himself from our planet, but since he debuted with The wilderness (2009) has focused on singular narrative points of view. On that occasion, he was a person suffering from Alzheimer's: as his faculties were fading, so was his prose...

— I like to explore points of view other than my own. My novels often explore little-explored angles, but this is not a response to research into literary topics, but rather to my personal interests. At that time there were no novels about someone suffering from Alzheimer's. There were some written from the perspective of family members or doctors, but not from the perspective of the patients.

Now he has delved into what day-to-day life is like on the International Space Station.

— What interests me is realism, so there was no point in writing a novel like that. Orbital in the style of science fiction. Why has no one ever written a novel about domestic life on a ship before? That's what I wanted to do.

In this domestic life, the six astronauts occasionally ask themselves profound questions. One of them imagines asking the other: "How can you be an astronaut and believe in God?" And the other answers: "And you, how can you be an astronaut and not believe?"

— I always place characters in particular existential situations, so that they can ask themselves big questions like the existence of God, how they experience time, or what it means to be yourself.

Could it be an influence from having studied philosophy at university?

— Partly, yes. Philosophy invites you to ask yourself questions. At least that happened to me while I was studying for my degree. Later on, things changed. My intention was to pursue an academic career, but as I progressed through my PhD, I realized that the exciting and general questions that were posed in my degree were becoming more and more specific. It was when philosophy became annoying that I gave it up. A path like writing novels seemed more pertinent to me, as I am. What I wanted was to be able to pose questions in books almost as experiments, without the intention of answering them, but observing and examining, very carefully, the subject I wanted to investigate.

I would say that one of the issues that Orbital examines how differently we experience time from outer space?

— Absolutely. Every effort is made to recreate Earth time on the International Space Station. The truth is that in outer space, the experience of time is completely different from that on Earth. In one day of ours, the International Space Station orbits our planet sixteen times. It turns night and day every 90 minutes. It passes over cold climates and tropical climates. There is no linear perception of time. You go around the planet, over and over again, without the possibility of stopping.

Yet his characters continue to dream that they are on Earth.

— It is true that we are an adventurous species, and that we have traveled as far as the Moon, which is 385,000 kilometers away from Earth. In cosmic terms, this is nothing. We remain tied to our planet, and for the time being this will remain the case. Earth is the only place where we can survive without having to rely on advanced technology. We are fragile creatures who need Earth: only from here can we continue to innovate and create.

Another element that caught my attention while reading Orbital Astronauts look at the Earth with fascination. They watch a typhoon unfold from a privileged perspective, or compare a part of Africa with a painting from William Turner's late years.

— I really like Turner's paintings from his later years. Since he could barely see, he painted the outlines of figures and landscapes, and they are almost abstract paintings, in which colour predominates.

Orbital It is a book in which colours are very present. For example, when he tries to describe the explosion of phosphorescence of an aurora borealis.

— I wanted to make a novel that was like a song or a painting, but I ran the risk of being spectacular and sufficient. Describing a typhoon or an aurora borealis is very tempting, and it might seem like I just want to stun the reader by explaining the wonders that astronauts see.

You wanted to go further: these descriptions also serve to lament what we are doing in the world. How we are transforming and even destroying it.

— Yes. Although it was never my intention to write about climate change, it was inevitable that I would end up dealing with the subject. From outer space, you look at the Earth and think that it is still a virgin place, but you are wrong. If you look a little closer, you begin to detect changes... Even from outer space, you can see how we are destroying our planet. With our actions, we are affecting the weather: we are warming the oceans, altering the natural movement of clouds and the way the winds blow... Observing the Earth from space means being witnesses to climate change.

Did writing this novel cause you climate anxiety or was it the other way around?

— I have no intention of being neutral on this issue. I am increasingly concerned about climate change and frustrated by the lack of action to stop climate change. Orbital It is a testimony to this vision, but at the same time it does not want to be carried away by pessimism and wants to convey the beauty of what the six astronauts see or contemplate.

The reader who begins Orbital If you're looking for a very complex dramatic arc you'll be disappointed. There are no major events or remarkable changes in the entire novel.

— Maybe this is a challenge for a certain type of reader. For me it is not at all. I love writing novels without any dramatic conflict, without catastrophes or big changes that push them forward. Orbital It tells the story of just one day in the life of six astronauts who have gone through many trials to reach the International Space Station. Part of their mission is to enable them to live in harmony together, regardless of what they think of each other, because they are interdependent.

The astronauts live in harmony, but the countries they belong to do not. There is a division between the four astronauts who are not Russian and the two who come from Russia.

— I finished the novel before Russia invaded Ukraine. Still, I had in mind that I didn't want to ignore the growing unrest between the West and Russia. That's why at one point in the book there's talk of a rift on the International Space Station. The rift is real, it exists, and it's symbolic. The International Space Station was a peace project that wanted to repair the relations damaged during the Cold War.

It was put into orbit at the end of the 20th century.

— It has been a success for the past 25 years. Seventeen countries have contributed – this is no joke, we should be proud. The Russian part of the International Space Station cannot function without the American, European and Japanese parts. The only way to survive is through cooperation. It is inevitable that all this will be lost soon. The International Space Station will be like a pleasant dream from which we will soon wake up.

There is a subversive point to writing a novel in which nothing happens.

— As readers, we are programmed for disasters, for bad news, or simply for those turning points that make the story move forward. But a novel about an orbiting space station can only explain that it is circling the Earth, over and over, without stopping. History, if it exists, must emulate this movement. Writing a novel is like casting a spell. If I can get the reader to notice its effects and want to stay, I will have won. I trust that will be enough to keep writing like this.

The Booker must have been a help.

— Winning the Booker has been something of a miracle. But I have to fight to keep having one day a week that I can devote to writing. If the Booker takes me away from literature, it will go from being a miracle to a curse.

BeforeOrbital had been through a difficult time. The insomnia he suffered following the sudden death of a cousin motivated The shapeless unease: in year of not sleeping (2020) [An indefinite malaise [in Spanish at Anagrama, 2022]. Are you feeling better from insomnia?

— I still sleep badly, but I'm a little better. Since the events that prompted that book, I haven't been completely well. That season, despair took hold of me. The nights became eternal. There was no difference from the day, in fact. The only thing I could do, apart from going to the doctor, was write. It's the only thing I know how to do. I didn't write with any other purpose than to try to express myself through phrases that I wanted to be beautiful.

Did that change your approach to literature?

— Absolutely. I realized that it is something I need to do to continue living, regardless of the success or impact my books may have. The world does not need me to write any novels, but I do.