Russian writer, dramatist, and critic. Although a Bolshevik in his youth, he was
critical of the postrevolutionary government. In 1921, he founded an important
group of writers, the Serapion Brothers. The 1920s saw the production of his finest
stories and plays, including the dystopian novel My/We, 1924, a critique of
totalitarianism that influenced the English writers Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.
His criticism of the Soviet authorities ended with his exile to France in 1931.