We

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, is a classic tale that stands as a forerunner of the dystopian future genre. It depicts a world of passionless, totalitarian control.

After a devastating global war involving weapons of mass destruction, only a fraction of humanity survives, living within a single society called the One State, ruled by The Benefactor. Humans are designated by numbers rather than names, and the central government surveils the populace through glass walls. To further serve its purposes, the One State surgically alters its subjects to remove imagination and emotions from their brains.

Outside the walls of the One State lies a post-apocalyptic wilderness. D-503, an engineer building a spaceship intended for extraterrestrial conquest, becomes romantically involved with an independent and rebellious woman. She is part of a revolutionary group intent on bringing down the One State.

Groundbreaking for its time, the novel influenced the genre that would later include such works as 1984 and Brave New World.