A contemporary novel-in-verse, WE: Yevgeny Zamyatin Annexed from the Russian takes, reinterprets, and responds to the legacy of a classic Soviet text through a distinctly modern lens.

In a glass-walled 51st State, citizens are known not by names but by numbers. Their lives are governed by strict schedules and constant surveillance under the czars and a singular head of state: One Wayne G. A loyal poet-engineer, 555, oversees the construction of a Nexus meant to extend this “ideal” system universally. Although initially a devout believer, 555’s encounter with the enigmatic 360 fractures his orderly world, giving way to desire, uncertainty, and a growing awareness of perfection’s cost.

The world of WE borders on absurd, yet remains legible precisely because it reflects the structures, contradictions, and excesses of our own. In dialogue with Yevgeny Zamyatin, and echoing the concerns of French theorist Maurice Blanchot, Sharpe’s WE treats language not as stable expression but as a site of volatility where meaning softens, authorship fractures, and the act of writing resists resolution.