Foma Gordeyev or The Man Who Was Afraid (Gordeev) [Russian: Фома Гордеев] is an 1899 novel by Maxim Gorky.

"It is supposed to present the broad and true picture of the contemporary life, while featuring the figure of an energetic, healthy man, craving for space to realize his power's potential.

He realizes that there is no place for heroes in it, they apt to being defeated by small things, like Hercules, the conqueror of hydras, crashed by hordes of mosquitoes," he wrote in a February 1898 letter to the publisher S.

"Foma is just a sprightly man looking for freedom but feeling thwarted by life's conventions," he wrote in the same letter, promising to soon embark upon another novel, telling by way of redressing the balance, the life of a 'true' tradesman, a smart and cynical crook, going by the name of Mikhail Vyagin (the project never materialized).

Jack London in his review writes: "Foma Gordyeeff" is a big book—not only is the breadth of Russia in it, but the expanse of life.