Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (1884–1937) was a Russian author of science fiction, philosophy, literary criticism, and political satire, now considered one of the first Soviet dissidents due to his use of literature to both satirize and criticize the Soviet Union’s enforced conformity and increasing totalitarianism, as especially found in his highly influential and widely imitated dystopian science fiction novel WE. Set in the 26th century, in a time when individual freedom does not exist and uniformed humans have no names, only assigned numbers, a mathematician, D-503, begins a journal while overseeing the construction of the spaceship Integral for the United State – a sprawling, urban city-state governed strictly by scientific logic and reason, and constructed almost entirely of glass buildings perpetually monitored by a secret police force known as the Bureau of Guardians. However, when D-503 meets the rule-defying I-330, he abruptly discovers through a blooming irrational love that he possesses something that may destroy him: an individual soul.
Coming soon . . .
“A literary landmark, led the way to Brave New World and 1984.” —Saturday Review
“Zamyatin’s influence on Orwell is beyond dispute.” —Alex M. Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin
“. . . his book is not simply the expression of a grievance. It is in effect a study of the Machine, the genie that man has thoughtlessly let out of its bottle and cannot put back again. This is a book to look out for . . . ” —George Orwell
“One of the best!” —The New York Review of Books
“The ur-text of science fiction dystopias.” —Wall Street Journal
“The best single work of science fiction yet written.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
“Philosophical as Plato’s The Republic, interesting as the best utopias of H.G. Wells, cold as the muzzle of a loaded revolver, and sarcastic as Gulliver’s Travels, WE is a powerful challenge to all Socialist utopias.” —Pitirim A. Sorkin
“As the first major anti-utopian fantasy . . . has its own peculiar wryness and grace, sharper than the pamphleteering of 1984 or the philosophical schema of Brave New World, its celebrated descendants.” —Kirkus Reviews
“. . . along with Brave New World and 1984, forms a trio of world-famous works.” —SF and Fantasy Book Review
“FANTASTIC . . . In spite of its grim ending, almost lyrically optimistic!” —The New York Times
“1984 shares so many features with WE that there can be no doubt about its general debt to it . . . Orwell’s novel is both bleaker and more topical than Zamyatin’s, lacking entirely that ironic humour that pervades the Russian work.” —Robert Russell, Zamyatin’s We
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