Evgenii Ivanovich Zamiatin lived in the first two, but participated in all three, periods of twentieth-century Russian literature and was out of step in each. In the pre-Soviet period, known as the Silver Age, he worked as an engineer, wrote satires, and belonged to the Bolshevik Party. He was promoted for the first activity, censored for the second, and imprisoned for the third. His writings, partly withheld from the public, were few yet significant. In the Soviet period, which split Russian literature into two lines--the state-approved and the state-disapproved, or the externally controlled and the internally motivated--Zamiatin worked as a writer, wrote satires, and belonged to no party. As a writer he was initially elevated to a position of high respect, then viciously attacked, and finally driven into exile; as a satirist he was censored; and as a person with no party affiliation, he was suspected of treason...