We is an earth shattering dystopian novel that ruffled the feathers of the ruling elite of Russia when it was smuggled out of the country and published in English in 1924. It would not see publication in Russia until 1988. As a result of Yevgeny Zamyatin's treatment over the novel he left Russia.
We is set in the twenty six century were a totalitarian government rules the world. Every citizen has all of their needs completely taken care of. But the price is a life without passion, creativity, or adventure. Cities are made of glass to aid the government's surveillance of its people. Citizens are given numbers rather than names to discourage individuality. But resentment and anger seethe just beneath the surface of the citizenry's polite veneer. It is time for someone to strike a blow for individuality and freedom. A fast paced adventure novel with a message that reverberated down through history.
Brave New World, Anthem, 1984, and Player Piano all owe an enduring debt to We. Of writing Player Piano Kurt Vonnegut said "I cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."

Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) was a Russian author of science-­fiction and political satire. He is most famous for his 1921 novel We, a story set in a dystopian future police state. Due to his use of literature to criticize Soviet society, Zamyatin has been referred to as one of the first Soviet dissidents.

Although Zamyatin supported the Communist Party of the Soviet Union before they came to power, he slowly came to disagree with their policies, particularly those regarding censorship of the arts. In his 1921 essay "I Am Afraid," Zamyatin wrote: "True literature can exist only when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and skeptics." This attitude made his position increasingly difficult as the 1920s wore on. In 1923, Zamyatin arranged for the manuscript of We to be smuggled to E.P. Dutton and Company in New York City. After being translated into English by Gregory Zilboorg, the novel was published in 1924.

In 1927, Zamyatin smuggled the original Russian text to Marc Lvovich Slonim (1894-1976), then editor of a Russian émigré journal and publishing house based in Prague. To the fury of the State, copies of the Slonim edition began being smuggled back to the USSR and secretly passed from hand to hand - triggering a mass offensive by the Soviet State against him. As a result, he was blacklisted from publishing anything in his homeland. In 1931, Zamyatin appealed directly to Joseph Stalin, requesting permission to leave the Soviet Union. With the encouragement of Maxim Gorky, Stalin agreed to Zamyatin's request.

Zamyatin settled with his wife in Paris, where he collaborated with French film director Jean Renoir. Zamyatin died in poverty of a heart attack in 1937. We directly inspired Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), Ayn Rand's Anthem (1938), George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano (1952), and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed (1974).