The English translation was published in the United States, and I have never been able to procure a copy: but copies of the French translation (the title is Nous Autres) do exist, and I have at last succeeded in borrowing one. A copy of the manuscript found its way out of the country, and the book has appeared in English, French and Czech translations, but never in Russian. We was written about 1923, and though it is not about Russia and has no direct connection with contemporary politics-it is a fantasy dealing with the twenty-sixth century A.D.-it was refused publication on the ground that it was ideologically undesirable. Zamyatin, who died in Paris in 1937, was a Russian novelist and critic who published a number of books both before and after the Revolution. Looking it up in Gleb Struve’s 25 Years of Soviet Russian Literature, I find its history to have been this: Several years after hearing of its existence, I have at last got my hands on a copy of Zamyatin’s We, which is one of the literary curiosities of this book-burning age. This material remains under copyright and is reproduced by kind permission of the Orwell Estate and Penguin Books. Buy We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Blackwell’s).Paul Owen: 1984 thoughtcrime? Does it matter that George Orwell pinched the plot?.Home / Orwell / Essays and other works / Freedom and Happiness (Review of ‘We’ by Yevgeny Zamyatin) Freedom and Happiness (Review of ‘We’ by Yevgeny Zamyatin)
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