The reality that dawns on the reader is that this seeming fiction is all-too real in our times. To come to understand its features and markings is the benefit of the dystopian genre. But the collectivism is of a recognizable type, one that threatens every society in all times. Written in 1921 by the Russian revolutionary Yevgeny Zamyatin, this story of the thirtieth century is set in the One State, a society where all live for the collective good and individual freedom does not exist.Īlthough fiction, it is a story informed by the war communism of the Soviet Union, and was of course completely banned in Russia. Dick, Ayn Rand ( Anthem), and Stanislaw Lem, We is a classic of dystopian science fiction ripe for rediscovery. ” -George OrwellĪn inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984 and a precursor to the work of Philip K.
This edition is translated from the Russian with a foreword by Greagory Zilboorg, an introduction by Peter Rudy, and a preface by Marc Slonim.“ intuitive grasp of the irrational side of totalitarianism - human sacrifice, cruelty as an end in itself - makes superior to Huxley’s.
It first appeared in Russia only in 1988. He wrote short stories, plays and essays, but his masterpiece is "We", written in 1920-21 and soon thereafter translated into most of the languages of the world. Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) was a naval engineer by profession and writer by vocation, who made himself an enemy of the Tsarist government by being a Bolshevik, and an enemy of the Soviet government by insisting that human beings have absolute creative freedom. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, "We" is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".
In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. A seminal work of dystopian fiction that foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia, Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand.
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