We

We is a dystopian novel set in the future One State, an urban nation constructed entirely of glass, which allows the secret police to supervise the populace more easily. People are identified by numbers rather than names, and the story follows D-503, a spacecraft engineer who begins to have heretical thoughts about individuality and freedom after encountering a mysterious woman.

Written in 1920-1921 by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin, the novel was the first work banned by the Soviet censorship board. It was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988. The book is widely regarded as the grandfather of the dystopian genre, directly inspiring George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Ayn Rand’s Anthem.

This Penguin Classics edition features a translation by Clarence Brown with an introduction and notes, and a foreword by Masha Gessen. It remains one of the most important and prophetic works of twentieth-century literature, exploring themes of freedom, individuality, and the dangers of totalitarian control that resonate powerfully today.