We (Unabridged‪)‬

Before George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, there was We, the dark dystopian tale by Yevgeny Zamyatin. In this Russian novel, Zamyatin gives the listener a look inside a glass city where a totalitarian society thrives, at least on the surface.

Those who live in this futuristic city are always taken care of but they lack creativity and individuality. This all changes when a mathematician named D-503 discovers that he has a soul that is separate from the OneState. He and the citizens of OneState live out their lives deprived of passion and creativity. Their names have been taken away and replaced with numbers, their daily routines are dictated by the “Time Tablet” which tells them what they should do, and when they should do it, hour after hour. 

This powerful science fiction novel has been a source of inspiration for dystopian writers since its publication in 1921. We is as powerful today as it was nearly a hundred years ago.