Gillian Anderson looked the epitome of sophistication as she joined the brainy Charles Dance at the 2024 Booker Prize winners’ event on Tuesday night.
The actress, 56, wore a gorgeous dark red dress as she posed at the literary event held in Old Billingsgate.
She finished the look with a pair of black strappy heels to add height and wore her blonde locks tied back.
Also at the event was actor Charles, 78, who looked elegant in a black suit that he wore with a printed scarf.
British author Samantha Harvey became the first woman since 2019 to win the Booker Prize.
Gillian Anderson looked the epitome of sophistication as she joined the brainy Charles Dance at the 2024 Booker Prize winners’ event on Tuesday night.
Actor Charles, 78, looked dapper in a black suit worn with a printed scarf when he arrived.
His book Orbital, about astronauts looking towards Earth, was named winner of the £50,000 prize and trophy at the ceremony in the City of London.
Harvey, who was nominated for the prestigious literary prize in 2009 for her debut novel The Wilderness, is the 19th woman to win since the first prize in 1969. There have been 36 male winners.
The Queen was one of the first to congratulate the author, after meeting her today, saying the novel was “brilliant”.
Harvey, from Bath, said he had “no idea how to cope” with his 2024 Booker Prize win as he took to the stage after his win.
She said she was “overwhelmed, indirectly” when Irish author Paul Lynch, a friend of hers, won last year, and “can’t believe” she’s in the same position.
She said, ‘God, I have no idea how to deal with this. I didn’t expect it. “I’m completely overwhelmed.”
Harvey dedicated the award to “all those who speak for and not against the earth, for and not against the dignity of other human beings, other lives and all people who speak, ask and work for peace.” .
‘I suppose it’s fair to say that no Booker speech has ever been given in a perfect world. It’s hard not to recognize the imperfections of the world we live in today.
The actress, 56, wore a gorgeous dark red dress as she posed at the literary event held in Old Billingsgate.
She finished the look with a pair of black strappy heels to add height and wore her blonde locks tied back.
She looked as elegant as ever in the midi dress.
Charles looked elegant at the event.
British author Samantha Harvey became the first woman since 2019 to win the Booker Prize
He posed with his award at the awards ceremony in London
Five years ago, the gong went to two women, British author Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other and Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood for The Handmaid’s Tale sequel, The Testaments.
The last time a British author won it was when Glasgow-born Douglas Stuart was named winner of the 2020 Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain.
Harvey joined the likes of Gillian, Charles, Sara Pascoe, Sir Lenny Henry, Ruth Jones and television historian David Olusoga at the star-studded ceremony.
Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said: “Orbital wins the prize in a year of geopolitical crisis, which is likely to be the warmest year on record.”
“A book about a planet ‘formed by the incredible force of human need,’ about a ‘limitless place’ with no wall or barrier visible from space, with all the politics ‘an assault on its gentleness,’ is hopeful, timely, and eternal.’
Speaking to The Guardian, he continued: “By walking away, I will allow myself to escape our web of concerns about the impact we have on each other and the planet.”
Born in Kent, Harvey said she had been looking at the ISS live camera “for years” and had been immersed in the beauty it displayed.
Describing it as a “space pastoral,” he said the characters are “just a part of the picture, not the lens,” and his main hope was to “do justice in words to the beauty of the Earth and how I feel about it.” baffling”. of his loneliness.”
Harvey’s novel takes place over a 24-hour period, following six astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station during 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets.
It touches on the death of a loved one, the approach of a typhoon and the fragility of human life.
Harvey, a professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University, where she herself went to university, previously told the BBC that she wrote the book between successive lockdowns.
Sir Lenny Henry (left) and Lisa Makin attend the announcement of the 2024 Booker Prize winners
Author Elizabeth Day and her husband Justin Basini also attended.
Comedian Tom Allen wore an elegant velvet suit
She told Radio 4’s Front Row: “I was writing about six people trapped in a can. I felt there was something resonant about that and our experience of lockdown, of not being able to escape from each other and also not being able to reach other people.’
This year, a record number of women were shortlisted for the Booker – five nominees in total.
Orbital, the best-selling book on the shortlist, with 29,000 copies sold in the UK this year, is also the second shortest Booker winner, just behind Penelope Fitzgerald’s Offshore, which won the 1979 prize.
It also won the 2024 InWords Literary Prize and the 2024 Hawthornden Prize for Literature.