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We: A Novel
The novel that inspired 1984 and Brave New World — in a vivid new translation.
Written in 1920 and suppressed by Soviet censors for decades, We is the founding text of twentieth-century dystopian fiction. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s narrator, D-503 — mathematician, loyal subject, Builder of the spaceship Integral — lives contentedly inside the One a glass city where every hour is scheduled, every wall transparent, and the Benefactor rules by unanimous election. Then he meets I-330.
What follows is a love story, a philosophical crisis, and a revolution — told in D-503’s own voice as it cracks open, splinters, and finally goes silent. The fragmented prose, mathematical metaphors, and raw interiority that make We so startling are preserved here in a new English translation made directly from the Russian original.
Aldous Huxley read it. George Orwell read it twice and said it was worth reading. Nearly a century later, its portrait of a society that has traded freedom for happiness feels more current than ever.
“The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.”
Written in 1920 and suppressed by Soviet censors for decades, We is the founding text of twentieth-century dystopian fiction. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s narrator, D-503 — mathematician, loyal subject, Builder of the spaceship Integral — lives contentedly inside the One a glass city where every hour is scheduled, every wall transparent, and the Benefactor rules by unanimous election. Then he meets I-330.
What follows is a love story, a philosophical crisis, and a revolution — told in D-503’s own voice as it cracks open, splinters, and finally goes silent. The fragmented prose, mathematical metaphors, and raw interiority that make We so startling are preserved here in a new English translation made directly from the Russian original.
Aldous Huxley read it. George Orwell read it twice and said it was worth reading. Nearly a century later, its portrait of a society that has traded freedom for happiness feels more current than ever.
“The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.”
66 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 2, 2026
About the author
Yevgeny Zamyatin
312 books1,709 followersYevgeny Zamyatin (Russian: Евгений Замятин, sometimes also seen spelled Eugene Zamiatin) Russian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and essayist, whose famous anti-utopia (1924, We) prefigured Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), and inspired George Orwell's 1984 (1949). The book was considered a "malicious slander on socialism" in the Soviet Union, and it was not until 1988 when Zamyatin was rehabilitated. In the English-speaking world We has appeared in several translations.
"And then, just the way it was this morning in the hangar, I saw again, as though right then for the first time in my life, I saw everything: the unalterably straight streets, the sparkling glass of the sidewalks, the divine parallelepipeds of the transparent dwellings, the squared harmony of our gray-blue ranks. And so I felt that I - not generations of people, but I myself - I had conquered the old God and the old life, I myself had created all this, and I'm like a tower, I'm afraid to move my elbow for fear of shattering the walls, the cupolas, the machines..." (from We, trans. by Clarence Brown)
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was born in the provincial town of Lebedian, some two hundred miles south of Moscow. His father was an Orthodox priest and schoolmaster, and his mother a musician. He attended Progymnasium in Lebedian and gymnasium in Voronezh. From 1902 to 1908 he studied naval engineering at St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. While still a student, he joined the Bolshevik Party. In 1905 he made a study trip in the Near East. Due to his revolutionary activities Zamyatin was arrested in 1905 and exiled. His first short story, 'Odin' (1908), was drew on his experiences in prison.
Zamyatin applied to Stalin for permission to emigrate in 1931 and lived in Paris until his death.
"And then, just the way it was this morning in the hangar, I saw again, as though right then for the first time in my life, I saw everything: the unalterably straight streets, the sparkling glass of the sidewalks, the divine parallelepipeds of the transparent dwellings, the squared harmony of our gray-blue ranks. And so I felt that I - not generations of people, but I myself - I had conquered the old God and the old life, I myself had created all this, and I'm like a tower, I'm afraid to move my elbow for fear of shattering the walls, the cupolas, the machines..." (from We, trans. by Clarence Brown)
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was born in the provincial town of Lebedian, some two hundred miles south of Moscow. His father was an Orthodox priest and schoolmaster, and his mother a musician. He attended Progymnasium in Lebedian and gymnasium in Voronezh. From 1902 to 1908 he studied naval engineering at St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. While still a student, he joined the Bolshevik Party. In 1905 he made a study trip in the Near East. Due to his revolutionary activities Zamyatin was arrested in 1905 and exiled. His first short story, 'Odin' (1908), was drew on his experiences in prison.
Zamyatin applied to Stalin for permission to emigrate in 1931 and lived in Paris until his death.
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July 14, 2026
This translation is awful, incomprehensible, without head of tails. Maybe AI? Looking for a better one because the novel seems fascinating
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review