Samantha Harvey won the prestigious award for a wonder-filled novel, set aboard the International Space Station, that ponders the beauty and fragility of Earth.

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.

The prize recognizes the best novel written in English and published in Britain or Ireland, and comes with a cash prize of 50,000 pounds, or $64,000