©2024 Fable Group Inc.
3.5 

We

By Yevgeny Zamyatin & Mint Editions
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin & Mint Editions digital book - Fable

Why read on Fable?

Discover social reading

Chat inside the ebook with emojis, comments and more

Annotate with notes, tabs, and highlights

Share or keep your notes private with our annotation features

Support the World Literacy Foundation

We donate 20% of every book sale to help children learn to read

Publisher Description

We (1924) is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Written between 1920 and 1921, the novel reflects its author’s growing disillusionment with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the Russian Civil War. Smuggled out of the country, the manuscript was translated into English by Gregory Zilboorg and published in New York in 1924.

In a series of diary entries, D-503, an engineer in charge of building the spaceship Integral, reflects on life in the One State. In this totalitarian society, people live within glass structures under direct, constant surveillance by the Benefactor and his operatives. When he is not working on the Integral, D-503 visits with his state-appointed lover O-90 and spends time with his friend R-13, a poet who reads his works at executions. On a walk with O-90, D-503 meets a free-spirited woman named I-330, who flirts with him and eventually convinces him to transgress the rules he has followed his whole life. Although he plans to turn her over to authorities, he cannot bring himself to betray her trust, and begins to have dreams for the first time in his life. Struggling to balance his duty to the state with his strange new feelings, D-503 moves closer and closer to the limits of law and life.

This edition of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is a classic of Russian literature and dystopian science fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

19 Reviews

3.5
“The only reason I've been reading this book so slowly was that I'm currently abroad on holiday. Otherwise, this book was very hard to put down! After hearing this book inspired 1984, I knew I simply must read it.. and I was not disappointed. In fact, I think this is better than 1984 in the ways that it portrayed the protagonist's navigation of totalitarian norms and fluctuating relationships with the people around him. I-330 was a stronger badass female protagonist than Julia, since she wasn't objectified and her perspective was actually capitalized. I don't wanna base this reading entirely comparing it to 1984 though, and I think this book is a masterpiece regardless of its external context.”

About Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) was a Russian author of science fiction and political satire. The son of a Russian Orthodox priest and a musician, Zamyatin studied engineering in Saint Petersburg from 1902 until 1908 in order to serve in the Russian Imperial Navy. During this time, however, he became disillusioned with Tsarist policy and Christianity, turning to Atheism and Bolshevism instead. He was arrested in 1905 during a meeting at a local revolutionary headquarters and was released after a year of torture and solitary confinement. Unable to bear life as an internal exile, Zamyatin fled to Finland before returning to St. Petersburg under an alias, at which time he began writing works of fiction. Arrested once more in 1911, Zamyatin was released and pardoned in 1913, publishing his satire of small-town Russia, A Provincial Tale, to resounding acclaim. Completing his engineering studies, he was sent by the Imperial Russian Navy to England to oversee the development of icebreakers in shipyards along the coast of the North Sea. There, he gathered source material for The Islanders (1918) a satire of English life, before returning to St. Petersburg in 1917 to embark on his literary career in earnest. As the Russian Civil War plunged the country into chaos, Zamyatin became increasingly critical of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, leading to his eventual exile. Between 1920 and 1921, he wrote We (1924), a dystopian novel set in a futuristic totalitarian state. Thought to be influential for the works of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, We is a groundbreaking work of science fiction that earned Zamyatin a reputation as a leading political dissident of his time. With the help of Maxim Gorky, Zamyatin obtained a passport and was permitted to leave the Soviet Union in 1931. Settling in Paris, he spent the rest of his life in exile and deep poverty.

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

FAQ

Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Do you sell physical books too?

Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

Error Icon
Save to a list
0
/
30
0
/
100
Private List
Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
Notification Icon
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB