We

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Mar 2021 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

We is an earth shattering dystopian novel that ruffled the feathers of the ruling elite of Russia when it was smuggled out of the country and published in English in 1924. It would not see publication in Russia until 1988. As a result of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s treatment over the novel he left Russia. We is set in the twenty six century where a totalitarian government rules the world. Every citizen has all of their needs completely taken care of. But the price is a life without passion, creativity, or adventure. Cities are made of glass to aid the government’s surveillance of its people. Citizens are given numbers rather than names to discourage individuality. But resentment and anger seethe just beneath the surface of the citizenry’s polite veneer. It is time for someone to strike a blow for individuality and freedom. A fast paced adventure novel with a message that reverberated down through history. Brave New World, Anthem, 1984, and Player Piano all owe an enduring debt to We. Of writing Player Piano Kurt Vonnegut said “I cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We.”

About the author

Zamyatin studied at the Polytechnic Institute in St. Petersburg and became a professional naval engineer. His first story appeared in 1908, and he became serious about writing in 1913, when his short novel A Provincial Tale (1913) was favorably received. He became part of the neorealist group, which included Remizov and Prishvin. During World War I, he supervised the construction of icebreakers in England for the Russian government. After his return home, he published two satiric works about English life, "The Islanders" (1918) and "The Fisher of Men" (1922). During the civil war and the early 1920s, Zamyatin published theoretical essays as well as fiction. He played a central role in many cultural activities---as an editor, organizer, and teacher of literary technique---and had an important influence on younger writers, such as Olesha and Ivanov. Zamyatin's prose after the Revolution involved extensive use of ellipses, color symbolism, and elaborate chains of imagery. It is exemplified in such well-known stories as "Mamai" (1921) and "The Cage" (1922). His best-known work is the novel We (1924), a satiric, futuristic tale of a dystopia that was a plausible extrapolation from early twentieth-century social and political trends. The book, which directly influenced George Orwell's (see Vol. 1) 1984, 1984, was published abroad in several translations during the 1920s. In 1927 a shortened Russian version appeared in Prague, and the violent press campaign that followed led to Zamyatin's resignation from a writers' organization and, eventually, to his direct appeal to Stalin for permission to leave the Soviet Union. This being granted in 1931, Zamyatin settled in Paris, where he continued to work until his death. Until glasnost he was unpublished and virtually unknown in Russia.