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Before there was Huxley; before there was Orwell; there was Zamyatin.
The grandfather of dystopian fiction wasn't George Orwell or Aldous Huxley; it was an obscure writer, one they both borrowed from.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was written in-and smuggled out of-Soviet Russia.
In it, the One State is a world where people are numbers, free will is a disease, and life has been reduced to a mathematical equation-that is, until one man tries to factor in the ultimate unknown: love.
A propos de l'auteur
Yevgeny Zamyatin was a Russian writer and engineer born on February 1, 1884, in Lebedyan, Russia. Raised in an Orthodox household, Zamyatin showed an early love for literature and later studied naval engineering at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. His revolutionary activities against the tsarist regime led to his arrest and brief exile, beginning a lifelong tension with authority that would shape his work.As a writer, Zamyatin became known for his critical social and political commentary, inspired by his experiences as a naval engineer and his time in England overseeing shipbuilding projects. These encounters with industrialism and modern machinery deepened his interest in the impact of technology on society-a theme central to his landmark dystopian novel We, published in 1920. In the 1930s, as Soviet censorship intensified, Zamyatin's work was officially banned, and he faced increasing isolation. Seeking freedom, he appealed directly to Stalin and was granted permission to leave, settling in Paris in 1931. Although his later years were marked by isolation, his influence endured, especially through We, which shaped the dystopian genre and inspired authors like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Zamyatin passed away in 1937, leaving a legacy celebrated for its bold critique of authoritarianism and prescient insights into the dangers of unchecked state control.
