A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding:
longlisted for the International Booker Prize
Translated by Nichola Smalley
A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding:
longlisted for the International Booker Prize
Translated by Nichola Smalley
Overview
LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
Are we free to create our own destinies or are we just part of a system beyond our control?
A joyful family saga about free will, forgiveness, and how we are all interconnected.
In October 1989, a set of triplets is born, and it is this moment their father chooses to reveal his affair. Pandemonium ensues.
Over two decades later, Sebastian is recruited to join a mysterious organization, the London Institute of Cognitive Science, where he meets Laura Kadinsky, a patient whose inability to see the world in three dimensions is not the only thing about her that intrigues him. Meanwhile, Clara has traveled to Easter Island to join a doomsday cult, and the third triplet, Matilda, is in Sweden, trying to escape from the color blue.
Then something happens that forces the triplets to reunite. Their mother calls with worrying news: their father has gone missing and she has something to tell them, a twenty-five-year secret that will change all their lives …
“This is a prismatic, hilarious, and deeply intelligent novel overflowing with wisdom about the complexities of being alive—I read it ravenously, and with pen in hand.”
—Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Paperback
- 6in x 9in
- 544 pages
- 9781957363110
- USD$20.00
- 20 September 2022
- World English
Categories
Awards
- Longlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize
- Shortlisted for the 2023 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
- Winner of the 2019 Per Olov Enquist Literary Prize
- Winner of the 2019 Svenska Dagbladet’s Literature Prize
- Shortlisted for the 2020 Tidningen Vi’s Literature Prize
Praise
“Chaos and the search for order duel in Svensson’s intelligent debut.”
“In Amanda Svensson’s novel A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, a shocking secret forces three siblings to reevaluate their places in their family and the world … A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding is a dynamic novel about methods of coping in a world where nothing is certain.”
About the Author
Amanda Svensson grew up in Malmö. She studied creative writing and has translated books by Ali Smith, Tessa Hadley, and Kristen Roupenian. A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding was awarded the Per Olov Enquist Literary Prize and the Svenska Dagbladet Literature Prize. It is shortlisted for Tidningen Vi’s Literature Prize.
Translator
Nichola Smalley is a translator of Swedish and Norwegian literature. Her translation of Andrzej Tichý’s novel Wretchedness won the 2021 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize, and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Bernard Shaw Prize that same year. She lives in London.
