Clarence Brown es un distinguido teórico literario, especializado en literatura rusa y comparada. Sus ensayos críticos y traducciones del ruso han enriquecido la comprensión de la literatura mundial. Ejerció como profesor en la Universidad de Princeton, formando a generaciones de estudiantes. Su obra profundiza en los temas trascendentales y los matices estilísticos de las creaciones literarias.
Осип Мандельштам (1891–1938) — одна из ключевых фигур русской культуры XX века, ее совершенно особый и самобытный поэтический голос. «В ремесле словесном я ценю только дикое мясо, только сумасшедший нарост», — так определял Мандельштам особенность своей прозы с ее афористичной, лаконичной, плотной языковой тканью.
We takes place in a distant future, where humans are forced to submit their wills to the requirements of the state, under the rule of the all-powerful Benefactor, and dreams are regarded as a sign of mental illness. In a city of straight lines, protected by green walls and a glass dome, a spaceship is being built in order to spearhead the conquest of new planets. Its chief engineer, a man called D-503, keeps a journal of his life and activities: to his mathematical mind everything seems to make sense and proceed as it should, until a chance encounter with a woman threatens to shatter the very foundations of the world he lives in. Written in a highly charged, direct and concise style, Zamyatin's 1921 seminal novel – here presented in Hugh Aplin's crisp translation – is not only an indictment of the Soviet Russia of his time and a precursor of the works of Orwell and the dystopian genre, but also a prefiguration of much of twentieth-century history and a harbinger of the ominous future that may still lay ahead of us.