By Yevgeny Zamyatin, introduced by Ursula K. Le Guin and illustrated by Kit Russell

Folio Society, available now

In the far-future city of OneState, happiness has been reduced to a simple equation: remove freedom and choice, and create contentment for all…

Having read most of the “core” dystopian novels during my teens, I was quite surprised to discover that there was one that should have been on that reading list, given its influence on 1984, Brave New World and so many more such tales.

Illustration by Kit Russell from The Folio Society edition of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ©Kit Russell 2018

Zamyatin’s novel was – not surprisingly – banned in his native Russia, effectively for being rather too close to the mark in its look at the way in which humanity deals with a monolithic society. It’s worth noting that the introduction to this edition isn’t a new piece of writing by Le Guin, but a reprint of her essay from 1973 in which she calls it “the best single piece of science fiction yet written”. I’m not sure I’d go that far – it’s certainly hugely influential but in places it’s almost too on the nose – but it’s a book that I wish I had read many decades ago.

As you might expect from the Folio Society, this is a stunning new edition, using the Clarence Brown translation, which reflected some of the changes revealed when the text was finally published in Russian in 1988 as part of glasnost. The illustrations by Kit Russell are starkly monochromatic and remind the reader that this book was written in the same decade as Metropolis.

Verdict: If you’ve not read We yet, you should; and what better way than this? 9/10

Paul Simpson

We can be ordered here directly from the Folio Society