A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding

A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding by Amanda Svensson, Nichola Smalley was 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?

This joyful family saga explores themes of free will, forgiveness, and the interconnectedness of all people.

In October 1989, a set of triplets is born, and at that moment, their father chooses to reveal his affair, causing pandemonium.

Over two decades later, Sebastian is recruited by a mysterious organisation, the London Institute of Cognitive Science, where he meets Laura Kadinsky, a patient whose inability to see the world in three dimensions is just one aspect of her intriguing persona. Meanwhile, Clara has travelled to Easter Island to join a doomsday cult, and the third triplet, Matilda, is in Sweden, trying to escape from the colour 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

"At the heart of Svensson's tumultuous epic lies a perennial query—Are our lives simply random intersections of space and time, or are they part of a grand master plan of the universe, where we are all but cosmic marionettes and nothing is coincidence?"
—The New York Times

"Amanda Svensson's raucous, sprawling debut takes on the enigmas of our origins, riddles of human consciousness and animal cognition, doomsday cults, and the most bedevilling of mysteries—the minds and choices of our closest intimates."
—Jury statement from the International Booker Prize 2023