We

Product Description

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 R&. This ” Penguin Classics” edition is translated from the Russian with an introduction by Clarence Brown. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful ` Benefactor`, the citizens of the totalitarian society of One State live out lives devoid of passion & creativity
- until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, ” We” is the classic dystopian novel & was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell`s ”1984” & Aldous Huxley`s ” Brave New World”. It was suppressed for many years in Russia & remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting & vivid work of science fiction. Clarence Brown`s brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years` suppression. Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) was a naval engineer by profession & writer by vocation, who made himself an enemy of the Tsarist government by being a Bolshevik, & an enemy of the Soviet government by insisting that human beings have absolute creative freedom. He wrote short stories, plays & essays, but his masterpiece is ” We”, written in 1920-21 & soon thereafter translated into most of the languages of the world. It first appeared in Russia only in 1988. If you enjoyed ” We”, you might like George Orwell`s ”1984”, also available in ” Penguin Classics”. ” The best single work of science fiction yet written”. (Ursula K. Le Guin, author of ” The Left Hand of Darkness”). ” It is in effect a study of the Machine, the genie that man has thoughtlessly let out of its bottle & cannot put back again”. (George Orwell, author of ”1984”).