Мы. Повести. Сказки

by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Евгений Иванович Замятин

Помимо самого известного произведения Замятина — авангардного для своего времени романа «Мы», который стал предтечей всех последующих антиутопий XX в., сборник включает автобиографию писателя, повести «Островитяне» и «Ловец человеков», в которых едко высмеиваются ограниченность жизненного уклада, консерватизм, снобизм и чопорность англичан, а также дюжину сказок для взрослых, которые были написаны в период с 1917 по 1920 гг. В них оригинальный язык писателя звучит также ярко, как и в его антиутопии «Мы». Роман «Мы» в этом сборнике проиллюстрирован рисунками современной художницы Веры Дубровской.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Yevgeny 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.

Reviews

[Elizaveta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a dozen of short stories and a couple of novels by Zamyatin, but couldn't read more, just realized the author is not for me. "Ловец Человеков" was the most interesting one because of its plot, but reading Zamyatin's stories 100 years later - I can't relate much ti them.