The System is the new novel by UEA alumnus Ryan Gattis and is published in the UK by Picador this week. Ryan was born in Illinois, USA, and raised in Colorado. He gained a BFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University in California in 2001 and graduated from the UEA MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2002. He published his first novel Roo Kickkick and the Big Bad Blimp in 2004. This was followed by Kung Fu High School in 2005 and two novellas, The Big Drop: Homecoming in 2012 and The Big Drop: Impermanence in 2013. All Involved: A Novel Of The 1992 LA Riots was published in 2015 and was the winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Lire Award for Noir of the Year in France. It was translated into eleven languages and the film rights were acquired by HBO. His most recent novel, Safe, was published in 2017. Ryan lives in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the street art crew UGLARworks and a founding board member of 1888, a Southern California literary arts non-profit.