From the stark depictions of rural Russia in ‘Provincial Life’ to the vivid portrayal of an artillery unit in ‘At the End of the Earth’, from stories such as ‘The Cave’ and ‘Mamai’, describing the terrible conditions endured by the citizens of Petrograd in the years of the civil war, to ‘X’, a light-hearted, slightly absurdist example of metafiction, through to the sombre tones of the final story in this volume, ‘Flood’, this collection represents some of the best fiction by the celebrated author of We.

Presented in a brand-new translation by Galya and Hugh Aplin, these stories – long unavailable to English readers – show why Zamyatin’s oeuvre as a whole is worthy of greater recognition today, not just for the context it affords readers of his most famous novel, but also for the light it can shed on Russian literature, culture and society of its time – as well as, most importantly, for its own intrinsic merit.

Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884–1937) combined a career as a naval engineer with the writing of novels, short stories and journalism. His satirical and critical works earned him the displeasure of the Soviet regime, and he spent the last few years of his life in exile in Paris.