Evgeniĭ Ivanovich Zami︠a︡tin

Transl. by Bernard Guilbert Guerney. Introd. by Michael Glenny

Yevgeny Zamyatin

The chilling dystopian novel that influenced George Orwell while he was writing 1984, with a new introduction by Margaret Atwood and an essay by Ursula Le Guin In a glass-enclosed city of perfectly straight lines, ruled over by an all-powerful "Benefactor," the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState are regulated by spies and secret police; wear identical clothing; and are distinguished only by a number assigned to them at birth. That is, until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. He can feel things. He can fall in love. And, in doing so, he begins to dangerously veer from the norms of his society, becoming embroiled in a plot to destroy OneState and liberate the city. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We was the forerunner of canonical works from George Orwell and Alduous Huxley, among others. It was suppressed for more than sixty years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, as well as a powerful, exciting, and vivid work of science fiction that still feels relevant today. Bela Shayevich's bold new translation breathes new life into Yevgeny Zamyatin's seminal work and refreshes it for our current era.

A Novel

Emilee Keawe Oldroyd

What a pleasant surprise. It’s incredibly obvious that this text was the blueprint for Orwell when addressing totalitarian surveillance. Zamyatin cleverly interrogates the fragility of totalitarianism by poking at it with the persistent individuality of his characters. He warns of the dangers of totilitarian control and surveillance nearly 30 years before Orwell and he does it in 100 or so less pages. 

Willow Beller

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILL SELF The citizens of the One State live in a condition of 'mathematically infallible happiness'. D-503 decides to keep a diary of his days working for the collective good in this clean, blue city state where nature, privacy and individual liberty have been eradicated. But over the course of his journal D-503 suddenly finds himself caught up in unthinkable and illegal activities - love and rebellion. Banned on its publication in Russia in1921, We is the first modern dystopian novel and a satire on state control that has once again become chillingly relevant.

Introduction by Will Self

Lindy

I liked it better than 1984, but not by much.

Evgeniĭ Ivanovich Zami͡atin

Peanne

Cait🪼

Honestly, I don’t really know what to say: did I hate it, no; did I like it, no. I feel pretty much the same towards ‘We’ as I do towards 1984 - it’s well worth the read, but I probably won’t pick it up again. What I will say is that Zamyatin really works to unequivocally write off the ideal of a collective utopia held up by the Soviets - although to an extreme. For me, it felt more targeted towards totalitarian soviet socialism, rather than commentary on Leninist/Stalinist communism. 
In general, the writing style wasn’t for me. It certainly wasn’t bad! - maybe it was the translation, so I might read it in Russian later this year.

Michael Springer

This is one of the earlier dystopian novels, and having read a million of them, it was one of my very favorites.

Charlotte Dann

I MADE A VIDEO ABOUT THIS BOOK and I'm strangely proud of it. I didn't enjoy reading it too much, but found it so mentally stimulating.

Shona Tiger

I struggled quite a bit with the style (of the translator, perhaps, and I’ll try a later translation sometime). I was, however, very impressed with how modern this story from 100 years ago is, given how much I dislike classic SF for how dated it becomes. Which is not to say I didn’t cringe mightily every time D-503 mentioned R-13 (his poet friend)’s thick Negro lips … Being, as I suppose I am, Negro, and with, as I have, thick lips.

Regardless. I can see that this was indeed the first of this kind of fiction—the granddaddy of dystopian fiction—and that it’s impressive for being that. Would be interesting to watch the movie, because I can picture it all: basically, the North Korea of our imagination + glass everywhere and free, uninspired sex.

Ilse

This was such a wonderfully bizarre story that has left me with many thoughts. Can definitely recommend!

Deniz Erkaradağ

It's a great classic and precursor of the futuristic dystopia genre. We can see the schema of a dystopian novel.
I wish I hadn't read all of the successors before.

Sophia De La Garza

Not my cup of tea but also not the worst book I've had to read for school.

Alexia

It was much better than I thought it would be, considering it was written in the 20s.

Simon Elliott Stegall

Gets a lot of points for being the original dystopian novel, and it is better than 1984, but the characters still spout garbled and cartoony philosophies which don't translate very well this side of the Berlin Wall. Nevertheless, a must-read if you like dystopias.

In a glass city composed of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of OneState live their lives without passion or agency. That is until D-503, a man tasked with bringing the Revolution to the stars, meets a remarkable woman . . . Supressed in Russia for decades, Zamyatin's dystopian masterpiece prophesised the worst excesses of the Soviet Union, while creating an enduring and vivid vision of what future societies might look like - a vision which would inspire George Orwell's 1984 and many subsequent dystopias.

Lewis John Fisher

 Bruna Acioly Leão

A very good dystopian classic - especially when you have read lots of other dystopias, because you can sort of see what sort of font everybody had been drinking from, so to speak. However, I didn't really connect with the writing and I felt that some of the concepts of the world building and the plot were a little too abstract and difficult to grasp. Which is understandable since this book was written in a not so liberal time. 

I really appreciated how it showed the scary prospects of the future of this society (very much like 1984). Dystopias are supposed to scare, not to give hope, at least it was back when the world was so messed up it looked like we were heading towards one. But is it really so much better now? If this book is still so relevant, chances are is because we could still become a totalitarian unit with no individual freedom.

This book also had many quotes that I really liked - most of which mix mathematics with revolution. Like for instance when the main character says there shouldn't be another revolution because they already had the final one. The other character promptly asks him what is the final number... As you can see, the whole thing is very abstract, which is good for studying and analyzing, but it gets boring pretty easily.

One odd thing: the whole deal with The Great Operation kept reminding me of two things: the YA dystopia Delirium, and Doctor Who's Cybermen...

"1000 Novels Everyone Must Read: # 1 Best Dystopias" The Guardian"Fantastic!" The New York Times "A dystopian novel for the 21st century" The Week "Years before "1984," Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote We - a dystopian nightmare that remains eerily relevant even as Huxley and Orwell seem almost quaint." Salon The time is around a thousand years from now, and the place is a great city-state in which a mathematically perfect society has been established. People here do not have names, but numbers only. Since they have nothing to hide from each other, they live in buildings made of glass. Their lives are regulated by The Time Tablet, a universal schedule that clearly states which number should do what at a particular hour.The novel starts with a call. As a new spaceship, called Integral, is being built, the One State calls upon its citizens to write something praising their state so that the Integral could carry this message to other civilizations in the depths of the Universe. A 32-year-old mathematician "named" D-503, who is a Constructor of the Integral and a sincere admirer of the One State, starts a diary to describe his life to his unknown extraterrestrial readers. He writes about FREEDOM and LOVE, CONTROL and HAPPINESS. This diary is the novel itself.EXTRACT "You are afraid of it because it is stronger than you; you hate it because you are afraid of it; you love it because you cannot subdue it to your will. Only the unsubduable can be loved." "...Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative..." Yevgeny Zamyatin

With Introduction, Summary and Analysis

Jeremy Cote

I'm sure that some people regard this book as a great classic. However, I just couldn't get into the story. I wanted to, but I found the writing was stiff and confusing. I even lost track of the characters and setting at some points. Overall, I thought the story was alright, but nothing groundbreaking (though I'm sure it was at the time).

We Transl. by Bernard Guilbert Guerney. Introd. by Michael Glenny

Reviews