Stanisław Herman Lem (Polish: [staˈɲiswaf ˈlɛm]; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of novels, short stories and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical and humorous character. Lem’s books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have sold more than 45 million copies. Worldwide, he is best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science fiction writer in the world.
Lem was the author of the fundamental philosophical work Summa Technologiae, in which he anticipated the creation of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and also developed the ideas of human autoevolution, the creation of artificial worlds, and many others. Lem’s science fiction works explore philosophical themes through speculations on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of communication with and understanding of alien intelligence, despair about human limitations, and humanity’s place in the universe. His essays and philosophical books cover these and many other topics. Translating his works is difficult due to Lem’s elaborate neologisms and idiomatic wordplay.
The Sejm (the lower house of the Polish Parliament) declared 2021 Stanisław Lem Year.
Early life
Lem was born in 1921 in Lwów, interwar Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine). According to his own account, he was actually born on 13 September, but the date was changed to the 12th on his birth certificate because of superstition. He was the son of Sabina née Woller (1892–1979) and Samuel Lem (1879–1954), a wealthy laryngologist and former physician in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and first cousin to Polish poet Marian Hemar (Lem’s father’s sister’s son). In later years Lem sometimes claimed to have been raised Roman Catholic, but he went to Jewish religious lessons during his school years. He later became an atheist «for moral reasons … the world appears to me to be put together in such a painful way that I prefer to believe that it was not created … intentionally». In later years he would call himself both an agnostic and an atheist.
After the 1939 Soviet occupation of western Ukraine and Belarus, he was not allowed to study at Lwow Polytechnic as he wished because of his «bourgeois origin», and only due to his father’s connections he was accepted to study medicine at Lwów University in 1940. During the subsequent Nazi occupation (1941–1944), Lem’s Jewish family avoided placement in the Nazi Lwów Ghetto, surviving with false papers. He would later recall:
During that period, I learned in a very personal, practical way that I was no «Aryan». I knew that my ancestors were Jews, but I knew nothing of the Mosaic faith and, regrettably, nothing at all of Jewish culture. So it was, strictly speaking, only the Nazi legislation that brought home to me the realization that I had Jewish blood in my veins.
During that time, Lem earned a living as a car mechanic and welder, and occasionally stole munitions from storehouses (to which he had access as an employee of a German company) to pass them on to the Polish resistance.
In 1945, Lwow was annexed into the Soviet Ukraine, and the family, along with many other Polish citizens, was resettled to Kraków, where Lem, at his father’s insistence, took up medical studies at the Jagiellonian University. He did not take his final examinations on purpose, to avoid the career of military doctor, which he suspected could have become lifelong. After receiving absolutorium (Latin term for the evidence of completion of the studies without diploma), he did an obligatory monthly work at a hospital, at a maternity ward, where he assisted at a number of childbirths and a caesarean section. Lem said that the sight of blood was one of the reasons he decided to drop medicine.
Rise to fame
Lem started his literary work in 1946 with a number of publications in different genres, including poetry, as well as his first science fiction novel, The Man from Mars, serialized in Nowy Świat Przygód (New World of Adventures). Between 1948 and 1950 Lem was working as a scientific research assistant at the Jagiellonian University, and published a number of short stories, poems, reviews, etc., particularly in the magazine Tygodnik Powszechny. In 1951, he published his first book, The Astronauts. In 1954, he published a short story collection, Sezam i inne opowiadania [Sesame and Other Stories]. The following year, 1955, saw the publication of another science fiction novel, The Magellanic Cloud.
During the era of Stalinism in Poland, which had begun in the late 1940s, all published works had to be directly approved by the state. Thus The Astronauts was not, in fact, the first novel Lem finished, just the first that made it past the state censors. Going by the date of the finished manuscript, Lem’s first book was a partly autobiographical novel Hospital of the Transfiguration, finished in 1948. It would be published seven years later, in 1955, as a part of the trilogy Czas nieutracony (Time Not Lost). The experience of trying to push Czas nieutracony through the censors was one of the major reasons Lem decided to focus on the less-censored genre of science fiction. Nonetheless, most of Lem’s works published in the 1950s also contain various elements of socialist realism as well as of the «glorious future of communism» forced upon him by the censors and editors. Lem later criticized several of his early pieces as compromised by the ideological pressure.
Lem became truly productive after 1956, when the de-Stalinization period in the Soviet Union led to the «Polish October», when Poland experienced an increase in freedom of speech. Between 1956 and 1968, Lem authored seventeen books. His writing over the next three decades or so was split between science fiction and essays about science and culture.
In 1957, he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogs, as well as a science fiction anthology, The Star Diaries, collecting short stories about one of his most popular characters, Ijon Tichy. 1959 saw the publication of three books: the novels Eden and The Investigation, and the short story anthology An Invasion from Aldebaran (Inwazja z Aldebarana). 1961 saw the novels Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Solaris, and Return from the Stars, with Solaris being among his top works. This was followed by a collection of his essays and non-fiction prose, Wejście na orbitę (1962), and a short story anthology Noc księżycowa (1963). In 1964, Lem published a large work on the border of philosophy and sociology of science and futurology, Summa Technologiae, as well as a novel, The Invincible.
1965 saw the publication of The Cyberiad and of a short story collection, The Hunt (Polowanie). 1966 was the year of Highcastle, followed in 1968 by His Master’s Voice and Tales of Pirx the Pilot. Highcastle was another of Lem’s autobiographical works, and touched upon a theme that usually was not favored by the censors: Lem’s youth in the pre-war, then-Polish, Lviv. 1968 and 1970 saw two more non-fiction treatises, The Philosophy of Chance and Science Fiction and Futurology. Ijon Tichy returned in 1971’s The Futurological Congress; in the same year Lem released a genre-mixing experiment, A Perfect Vacuum, a collection of reviews of non-existent books. In 1973 a similar work, Imaginary Magnitude, was published. In 1976, Lem published two works: «The Mask» and The Chain of Chance. In 1980, he published another set of reviews of non-existent works, Provocation. The following year saw another Tichy novel, Observation on the Spot, and Golem XIV. Later in that decade, Lem published Peace on Earth (1984) and Fiasco (1986), his last science fiction novel.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lem cautiously supported the Polish dissident movement, and started publishing essays in the Paris-based magazine Kultura. In 1982, with martial law in Poland declared, Lem moved to West Berlin, where he became a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). After that, he settled in Vienna. He returned to Poland in 1988.
Final years
From the late 1980s onwards, Lem tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays, published in Polish magazines including Tygodnik Powszechny, Odra, and Przegląd. These were later collected in a number of anthologies.
In early 1980s literary critic and historian Stanisław Bereś conducted a lengthy interview with Lem, which was published in book format in 1987 as Rozmowy ze Stanisławem Lemem (Conversations with Stanisław Lem). That edition was subject to censorship. A revised, complete edition was published in 2002 as Tako rzecze… Lem (Thus spoke… Lem).
In the early 1990s, Lem met with the literary critic and scholar Peter Swirski for a series of extensive interviews, published together with other critical materials and translations as A Stanislaw Lem Reader (1997). In these interviews Lem speaks about a range of issues he rarely discussed previously. The book also includes Swirski’s translation of Lem’s retrospective essay «Thirty Years Later», devoted to Lem’s nonfictional treatise Summa Technologiae. During later interviews in 2005, Lem expressed his disappointment with the genre of science fiction, and his general pessimism regarding technical progress. He viewed the human body as unsuitable for space travel, held that information technology drowns people in a glut of low-quality information, and considered truly intelligent robots as both undesirable and impossible to construct.
Writings
Lem’s prose shows a mastery of numerous genres and themes.
Recurring themes
One of Lem’s major recurring themes, beginning from his very first novel, The Man from Mars, was the impossibility of communication between profoundly alien beings, which may have no common ground with human intelligence, and humans. The best known example is the living planetary ocean in Solaris. Other examples include the intelligent swarms of mechanical insect-like micromachines in The Invincible, and strangely ordered societies of more human-like beings in Fiasco and Eden, describing the failure of first contact.
Another key recurring theme is the shortcomings of humans. In His Master’s Voice, Lem describes the failure of humanity’s intelligence to decipher and truly comprehend an apparent message from space. Two overlapping arcs of short stories, Fables for Robots and The Cyberiad provide a commentary on humanity in the form of a series of grotesque, humorous, fairytale-like short stories about a mechanical universe inhabited by robots (who have occasional contact with biological «slimies» and human «palefaces»). Lem also underlines the uncertainties of evolution, including that it might not progress upwards in intelligence.
Other writings
The Investigation and The Chain of Chance are crime novels (the latter without a murderer); Pamiętnik… is a psychological drama inspired by Kafka. A Perfect Vacuum and Imaginary Magnitude are collections of reviews of and introductions to non-existent books. Similarly, Provocations purports to review a non-existent Holocaust-themed work.
Essays
Dialogs and Summa Technologiae (1964) are Lem’s two most famous philosophical texts. The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances; in this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction at the time, but are gaining importance today—for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology.
Views in later life
Lem’s criticism of most science fiction surfaced in literary and philosophical essays Science Fiction and Futurology and interviews. In the 1990s, Lem forswore science fiction and returned to futurological prognostications, most notably those expressed in Okamgnienie Blink of an Eye.
Lem said that since the success of the trade union Solidarity, and the collapse of the Soviet empire, he felt his wild dreams about the future could no longer compare with reality.
He became increasingly critical of modern technology in his later life, criticizing inventions such as the Internet, which he said «makes it easier to hurt our neighbors.»
Relationship with American science fiction
SFWA
Lem was awarded an honorary membership in the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in 1973. SFWA honorary membership is given to people who do not meet the publishing criteria for joining the regular membership, but who would be welcomed as members had their work appeared in the qualifying English-language publications. Lem never had a high opinion of American science fiction, describing it as ill-thought-out, poorly written, and interested more in making money than in ideas or new literary forms. After his eventual American publication, when he became eligible for regular membership, his honorary membership was rescinded. This formal action was interpreted by some of the SFWA members as a rebuke for his stance, and it seems that Lem interpreted it as such. Lem was invited to stay on with the organization with a regular membership, but he declined. After many members (including Ursula K. Le Guin, who quit her membership and then refused the Nebula Award for Best Novelette for The Diary of the Rose) protested against Lem’s treatment by the SFWA, a member offered to pay his dues. Lem never accepted the offer.
Philip K. Dick
Lem singled out only one American science fiction writer for praise, Philip K. Dick, in a 1984 English-language anthology of his critical essays, Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy. Lem had initially held a low opinion of Philip K. Dick (as he did for the bulk of American science fiction) and would later say that this was due to a limited familiarity with Dick’s work, since Western literature was hard to come by in Communist Poland.
Dick alleged that Stanisław Lem was probably a false name used by a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion, and wrote a letter to the FBI to that effect. There were several attempts to explain Dick’s act. Lem was responsible for the Polish translation of Dick’s work Ubik in 1972, and when Dick felt monetarily short-changed by the publisher, he held Lem personally responsible (see Microworlds). Also it was suggested that Dick was under the influence of strong medications, including opioids, and may have experienced a «slight disconnect from reality» some time before writing the letter. A «defensive patriotism» of Dick against Lem’s attacks on American science fiction may have played some role as well. Lem would later mention Dick in his monograph Science Fiction and Futurology.
Significance, Writing
Lem is one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction writers, hailed by critics as equal to such classic authors as H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science fiction writer in the world. In Poland, in the 1960s and 1970s, Lem remained under the radar of mainstream critics, who dismissed him as a «mass market», low-brow, youth-oriented writer; such dismissal might have given him a form of invisibility from censorship. His works were widely translated abroad, appearing in over 40 languages and have sold over 45 million copies. As of 2020, about 1.5 million copies were sold in Poland after his death, with the annual numbers of 100,000 matching the new bestsellers.
Franz Rottensteiner, Lem’s former agent abroad, had this to say about Lem’s reception on international markets:
With number of translations and copies sold, Lem is the most successful author in modern Polish fiction; nevertheless his commercial success in the world is limited, and the bulk of his large editions was due to the special publishing conditions in the Communist countries: Poland, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic. Only in West Germany was Lem really a critical and a commercial success [… and everywhere …] in recent years interest in him has waned. Lem is the only writer of European science fiction, most of whose books have been translated into English, and […] kept in print in the USA. Lem’s critical success in English is due mostly to the excellent translations of Michael Kandel.
Influence
Will Wright’s popular city-planning game SimCity was partly inspired by Lem’s short story «The Seventh Sally» in The Cyberiad.
The video game Stellaris is highly inspired by his works, as its creators said at the start of 2021, designated the «Year of Lem».
A major character in the film Planet 51, an alien Lem, was named by screenwriter Joe Stillman after Stanisław Lem. Since the film was intended to be a parody of American pulp science fiction shot in Eastern Europe, Stillman thought that it would be hilarious to hint at the writer whose works have nothing to do with little green men.
Adaptations of Lem’s works
Solaris was made into a film in 1968 by Russian director Boris Nirenburg, a film in 1972 by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky—which won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972—and an American film in 2002 by Steven Soderbergh. Film critics have noted the influence of Tarkovsky’s adaptation on later science fiction films such as Event Horizon (1997) and Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010).
A number of other dramatic and musical adaptations of his work exist, such as adaptations of The Astronauts (First Spaceship on Venus, 1960) and The Magellanic Cloud (Ikarie XB-1, 1963). Lem himself was, however, critical of most of the screen adaptations, with the sole exception of Przekładaniec in 1968 by Andrzej Wajda. In 2013, the Israeli–Polish co-production The Congress was released, inspired by Lem’s novel The Futurological Congress.
György Pálfi directed a film adaptation of His Master’s Voice with the same title, which was released in 2018.
In 2023, 11 Bit Studios published The Invincible, an adventure video game developed by Starward Industries. The game is an adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s 1964 novel.
Honors
Main article: List of honors bestowed on Stanisław Lem
Awards
1957 – City of Kraków’s Prize in Literature (Nagroda Literacka miasta Krakowa)
1965 – Prize of the Minister of Culture and Art, 2nd Level (Nagroda Ministra Kultury i Sztuki II stopnia)
1973 – Prize of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for popularization of 1973 – Polish culture abroad (nagroda Ministra Spraw Zagranicznych za popularyzację polskiej kultury za granicą)
1973 – Literary Prize of the Minister of Culture and Art (nagroda literacka Ministra Kultury i Sztuki) and honorary member of Science Fiction Writers of America
1976 – State Prize 1st Level in the area of literature (Nagroda Państwowa I stopnia w dziedzinie literatury)
1979 – Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for his novel Katar.
1986 – Austrian State Prize for European Literature for year 1985
1991 – Austrian literary Franz Kafka Prize
1996 – recipient of the Order of the White Eagle
2005 – Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (on the list of the first recipients of the newly introduced medal)
Recognition and remembrance
1972 – member of commission «Poland 2000» of the Polish Academy of Sciences
1979 – a minor planet, 3836 Lem, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after him.
1981 – Doctor honoris causa honorary degree from the Wrocław University of Technology
1986 – the whole issue (#40 = Volume 13, Part 3) of Science Fiction Studies was dedicated to Stanislaw Lem
1994 – member of the Polish Academy of Learning
1997 – honorary citizen of Kraków
1998 – Doctor honoris causa: University of Opole, Lviv University, Jagiellonian University
2003 – Doctor honoris causa of the University of Bielefeld
2007 – A street in Kraków is to be named in his honour.
2009 – A street in Wieliczka was named in his honour
2011 – An interactive Google logo inspired by The Cyberiad was created and published in his honor for the 60th anniversary of his first published book: The Astronauts.
2013 – two planetoids were named after Lem’s literary characters:
343000 Ijontichy, after Ijon Tichy
343444 Halluzinelle, after Tichy’s holographic companion Analoge Halluzinelle from German TV series Ijon Tichy: Space Pilot
Lem (satellite), a Polish optical astronomy satellite launched in 2013 as part of the Bright-star Target Explorer (BRITE) programme
2015 – Pirx (crater), a90 km (55.9 miles) wide impact crater on Pluto’s natural satellite Charon, discovered in 2015 by the American New Horizons probe
2019 – the star Solaris and its planet Pirx, after the novel Solaris and Tales of Pirx the Pilot
In December 2020 Polish Parliament declared year of 2021 to be the Year of Stanisław Lem.
The Museum of City Engineering, Kraków, has the Stanislaw Lem Experience Garden, an outdoor area with over 70 interactive locations where children can carry out various physical experiments in acoustics, mechanics, hydrostatics and optics. Since 2011 the Garden has been organizing out the competition «Lemoniada», inspired by the creative output of Lem.
2021 – Lem Prize has been established by Wrocław University of Science and Technology to commemorate the 100th birthday Stanisław Lem. It is awarded annually to one young (under 40) European researcher whose creative work in science or engineering has potential for positive impact on the future of civilization increasingly filled with technology.
Political views
Lem’s early works were socialist realist, possibly to satisfy state censorship, and in his later years he was critical of this aspect of them. In 1982, with the onset of the martial law in Poland, Lem moved to Berlin for studies, and the next year he moved for several years (1983–1988) to Vienna. He never showed any wish to relocate permanently in the West. By the standards of the Eastern Bloc, Lem was financially well off for most of his life. Lem was a critic of capitalism, totalitarianism, and of both Stalinist and Western ideologies.
Lem believed there were no absolutes. He said: «I should wish, as do most men, that immutable truths existed, that not all would be eroded by the impact of historical time, that there were some essential propositions, be it only in the field of human values, the basic values, etc. In brief, I long for the absolute. But at the same time I am firmly convinced that there are no absolutes, that everything is historical, and that you cannot get away from history.» Lem was concerned that if the human race attained prosperity and comfort, this would lead it to passiveness and degeneration.
Personal life
Lem was a polyglot: he knew Polish, Latin (from medical school), German, French, English, Russian and Ukrainian. Lem claimed that his IQ was tested at high school as 180.
In 1953, Lem met radiology student Barbara (née Leśniak), whom he married in a civil ceremony the same year. The couple’s church marriage ceremony was performed in February 1954. Barbara died on 27 April 2016. Their only child, Tomasz (born 1968), who graduated with a degree in physics from Princeton University, has written Awantury na tle powszechnego ciążenia (Tantrums on the Background of the Universal Gravitation), a memoir which contains numerous personal details about Lem. The book jacket says Tomasz works as a translator and has a daughter, Anna.
As of 1984, Lem’s writing pattern was to get up a short time before five in the morning and start writing soon after, for 5 or 6 hours before taking a break.
Lem was an aggressive driver. He loved sweets (especially halva and chocolate-covered marzipan), and did not give them up even when, toward the end of his life, he fell ill with diabetes. In the mid-80s due to health problems he stopped smoking. Coffee often featured in Lem’s writing and interviews.
Stanisław Lem died from a heart failure in the hospital of the Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków on 27 March 2006 at the age of 84. He was buried at Salwator Cemetery, Sector W, Row 4, grave 17 (Polish: cmentarz Salwatorski, sektor W, rząd 4, grób 17).
In November 2021, Agnieszka Gajewska’s biography of Lem, Holocaust and the Stars, was translated into English by Katarzyna Gucio and published by Routledge. It discussed aspects of Lem’s life, such as being forced to wear the yellow badge and being struck for not removing his hat in the presence of Germans, as required of Jews at the time.
Lem loved movies and greatly enjoyed artistic cinema (especially the movies of Luis Buñuel). He also liked King Kong, James Bond, Star Wars, and Star Trek movies but he remained mostly displeased by movies which were based upon his own stories. The only notable exceptions are Voyage to the End of the Universe (1963) (which didn’t credit Lem as writer of the original book The Magellanic Cloud) and Przekładaniec (1968) (which was based upon his short story «Do You Exist, Mr Jones?»).
Bibliography of Stanisław Lem
Fiction
The Man from Mars (1946) – short novel, originally published in a magazine serial form. In 2009 for the first time a long excerpt from Chapter 1 was translated into English by Peter Swirski and published, with permission of Lem’s family, in the online literary magazine Words Without Borders.
Hospital of the Transfiguration (1948) – partly autobiographical novella about a doctor working in a Polish asylum during World War II, centred on a German Nazi euthanasia program Action T4. It was published in expanded form in 1955 as Czas nieutracony: Szpital przemienienia, and translated into English by William Brand (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988). In Poland it was made into a film in 1979.
The Astronauts (1951) – young adult science fiction novel. In the early 21st century, it is discovered that the Tunguska meteorite was a crash of a reconnaissance ship from Venus, bound to invade the Earth. A spaceship sent to investigate finds that Venusians killed themselves in an atomic war first. It was made into a film in 1960. Not translated into English.
The Magellanic Cloud (1955) – the first interstellar travel of mankind to the Alpha Centauri system. Not translated into English.
Eden (1959) – science fiction novel; after crashing their spaceship on the planet Eden, the crew discovers it is populated with an unusual society. Translated into English by Marc E. Heine (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989).
The Hunt (1950s) – short story, found in Lem’s archives and published in 2018.
The Investigation (1959) – philosophical mystery novel. Translated by Adele Milch (New York: The Seabury Press, 1974). The book was made into a short film of the same name by Marek Piestrak in 1973.
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961) – Kafkaesque novel set in the distant future about a secret agent, whose mission in an unnamed ministry is so secret that no one can tell him what it is. Translated by Michael Kandel and Christine Rose (New York: The Seabury Press, 1973)
Return from the Stars (1961) – science fiction novel. An astronaut returns to Earth after a 127-year long mission. Translated by Barbara Marszal and Frank Simpson (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980)
Solaris (1961) – science fiction novel. The crew of a remote space station is strangely influenced by the living ocean occupying a whole planet while they attempt communication with it. Translated into English from the French translation by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (New York, Walker & Co., 1970; London: Faber and Faber, 1970). Also translated by Bill Johnston in 2014. Made into two Russian films in 1968 and 1972, and an American film in 2002.
The Invincible (1964) – a hard science fiction novel credited with introducing nanotechnology into the genre. The crew of a space cruiser searches for a disappeared ship on the planet Regis III, discovering swarms of insect-like micromachines. Translated from German by Wendayne Ackerman (New York: The Seabury Press, 1973). Also translated by Bill Johnston in 2014.
His Master’s Voice (1968) – science fiction novel about the effort to translate an extraterrestrial transmission. Translated by Michael Kandel (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983).
The Futurological Congress (1971) – an Ijon Tichy novella, published in the collection Bezsenność (Insomnia) and Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego. Translated by Michael Kandel and published as a standalone novella. (New York: The Seabury Press, 1974).
The Chain of Chance (1976) – borderline SF novel. A former US astronaut is sent to Italy to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. Translated by Louis Iribarne (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978).
Golem XIV (1981) – science novel. Expansion of an essay/story from the collection Imaginary Magnitude.
Observation on the Spot (1982) – Ijon Tichy novel about the planet Entia. Not translated into English.
Peace on Earth (1985) – Ijon Tichy novel. A callosotomised Tichy returns to Earth, trying to reconstruct the events of his recent visit to the Moon. Translated by Michael Kandel and Elinor Ford (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994).
Fiasco (1986) – dystopian science fiction novel about an expedition to communicate with an alien civilization that results in a major fiasco. Translated by Michael Kandel (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987)
Compilations
Sesame and Other Stories (1955) – linked collection of short fiction, dealing with time machines used to clean up Earth’s history in order to be accepted into intergalactic society. Not translated into English.
The Star Diaries (1957–1971) – collection of short fiction dealing with the voyages of Ijon Tichy. English translations of some stories were published in two volumes: the first, The Star Diaries, by Michael Kandel (New York: The Seabury Press, 1976) and the second, Memoirs of a space traveler: further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy, by Joel Stern and Maria Swiecicka-Ziemianek (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982).
The Invasion from Aldebaran (1959) – collection of nine science fiction stories, among them three Tales of Pirx the Pilot and Darkness and Mold, about the creation of Whisteria Cosmolytica which is described as «a microbe annihilating matter and drawing its vital energy from that process», creating a grey goo scenario.
Mortal Engines (1961) – also contains The Hunt from Tales of Pirx the Pilot. Selected translation by Michael Kandel (New York: The Seabury Press, 1977).
The Cyberiad (1965) – collection of humorous baroque-style stories about the exploits of Trurl and Klapaucius, «constructors» among robots. The stories of Douglas Adams have been compared to the Cyberiad. Transl. by Michael Kandel (New York: The Seabury Press, 1974)
A Perfect Vacuum (1971) – collection of reviews of fictional books. Transl. by Michael Kandel. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.)
Imaginary Magnitude (1973) – collection of introductions to nonexistent books. Also includes Golem XIV, a lengthy essay/short story on the nature of intelligence delivered by an eponymous US military computer. In the personality of Golem XIV, Lem with a great amount of humor describes an ideal of his own mind. Transl. by Marc E. Heine (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984).
Tales of Pirx the Pilot (1973) – collection of linked short fiction involving the career of astronaut Pirx. English translations of some stories were published in two volumes: the first, Tales of Pirx the Pilot, by Louis Iribarne (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979) and the second, More Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Louis Iribarne, Magdalena Majcherczyk and Michael Kandel (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982).
The Cosmic Carnival of Stanisław Lem – edited with commentary by Michael Kandel. New York: Continuum, 1981. Includes:
The Condor from The Invincible (trans. from German by Wendayne Ackerman)
Excerpt from Solaris» (trans. from French by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox)
The Test (trans. from Polish by Louis Iribarne)
Chapter Seven of «Return from the Stars» (trans. from Polish by Barbara Marszal and Frank Simpson)
Excerpt from «The Futurological Congress» (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
Two Monsters (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
The Second Sally (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
Tale of the Computer That Fought a Dragon (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
The History of Zipperupus
The Star Diaries: The Seventh Voyage (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
The Star Diaries: The Fourteenth Voyage (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
Les Robinsonades (trans. from Polish by Michael Kandel)
Provocation (1984) – contains two faux reviews. Not translated into English.
One Human Minute (Biblioteka XXI wieku — lit. Library of 21st century, 1986) – 3 more fictional reviews (trans. from Polish by Catherine S. Leach)
The Riddle. Stories (1996) – collection of short stories. Not translated into English.
The Fantastical Lem (2001) – short stories collection. Not translated into English.
Lemistry: a celebration of the work of Stanisław Lem. Edited by Ra Page. A collection of three translated short works by Lem (The Lilo; Darkness and Mildew; The Invasion from Aldebaran) and works by other authors but inspired by Lem. (2011).
The Truth and Other Stories (2022) – short stories collection, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Nonfiction
Unless noted, not translated into English
Dialogi (Dialogs 1957) – Non-fiction work of philosophy. First section translated into English by Frank Prengel as Dialogs. Dialog 1 (On Nuclear Resurrection). Complete translation by Peter Butko in 2021, published by MIT Press.
Wejście na orbitę (Going into Orbit, 1962)
Summa Technologiae (1964) — Philosophical essay. Partially translated into English.
Wysoki zamek (1966) – Autobiography of Lem’s childhood in the interbellum Lwow. Translated into English as Highcastle: A Remembrance by Michael Kandel (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995)
Filozofia Przypadku (The Philosophy of Chance, 1968) – Nonfiction
Fantastyka i futurologia (Science Fiction and Futurology 1970) – Critiques on science fiction. Two chapters were translated into English in the magazine Science Fiction Studies in 1973-1975 and later included in the collection Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy, ed. Franz Rottensteiner (San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984). Includes two important essays on Philip K. Dick.
Conversations with Stanisław Lem, (pl:Rozmowy ze Stanisławem Lemem, Stanisław Bereś, Wydawnictwo Literackie Kraków, 1987, ISBN 83-08-01656-1)
Rozprawy i szkice (Essays and drafts, 1975) — collection of essays on science, science fiction, and literature in general
Lube czasy (Pleasant Times, 1995)
Dziury w całym (Looking for Problems, 1995)
Tajemnica chińskiego pokoju (Mystery of the Chinese Room, 1996) – Collection of essays on the impact of technology on everyday life.
Sex Wars (1996) — essays
Dyskusje ze Stanisławem Lemem M. Szpakowska, Discussions with Stanisław Lem, Warszawa 1996
Bomba megabitowa (The Megabit Bomb, 1999) – Collection of essays about the potential downside of technology, including terrorism and artificial intelligence.
World on the Brink (pl:Świat na krawędzi, 2000) interviews of Tomasz Fiałkowski with Lem
Okamgnienie (A Blink of an Eye, 2000) – Collection of essays on technological progress since the publication of Summa Technologiae
Thus Spoke… Lem (pl:Tako rzecze… Lem, 2002) – Interviews with Lem.
Mój pogląd na literaturę (My View of Literature, 2003)
Krótkie zwarcia (Short Circuits, 2004) — Essays
Lata czterdzieste. Dyktanda. (The 40s. Dictations, 2005) – Lem’s works from the 1940s
Rasa drapieżców. Teksty ostatnie (The Predator Race 2006) – the last book of Stanislaw Lem contains actual feuilletons about art, politic and social problems from Polish press «Tygodnik Powszechny».
Boli tylko, gdy się śmieję… Listy i rozmowy, (It Only Hurts When I Laugh… Letters and Conversations) Stanisław Lem, Ewa Lipska, Tomasz Lem, ebook, 2018, ISBN 978-83-08-06692-8, Wydawnictwo Literackie
From book description: «… Contains records of conversations the poet and the writer had in early 21st century , as well as the letters which Ewa Lipska exchanged with Stanisław Lem’s son when he studied in the United States. The book is adorned with numerous photos.»
Adaptations
Dramatic adaptations
Der Schweigende Stern (literally The Silent Star, shown in USA as First Spaceship on Venus, German Democratic Republic – Poland 1960), loosely based on The Astronauts
Profesor Zazul, Poland 1962, directed by Marek Nowicki and Jerzy Stawicki.
Przekładaniec (Layer Cake/Roly Poly, 1968, by Andrzej Wajda)
Ikarie XB-1 (in USA as White Planet or Voyage to the End of the Universe, Czechoslovakia 1963) – loosely based on The Magellanic Cloud, uncredited
Solaris (Соля́рис 1968) — by Boris Nirenburg (USSR). TV play based on the novel Solaris
Solaris (1972, by Andrei Tarkovsky)
Pirx kalandjai (1973, Hungarian TV)
Test pilota Pirxa or Дознание пилота Пиркса (from Pirx story «The Inquest», joint Soviet (Ukrainian-Estonian)-Polish production 1978, directed by Marek Piestrak)
1978 — 1981 London’s Triple Action Theatre Group world tour of Solaris adapted and directed by Steven Rumbelow. It was seen by Lem in Kraków when it was presented at Theater Stu in 1980.
Szpital przemienienia (Hospital of the Transfiguration, 1979, by Edward Zebrowski)
Victim of the Brain (1988, by Piet Hoenderdos) includes adaptation of the story «The Seventh Sally» from The Cyberiad
Marianengraben (1994, directed by Achim Bornhak, written by Lem and Mathias Dinter)
Solaris (2002, by Steven Soderbergh)
Ijon Tichy: Raumpilot (2007), German TV (ZDF) miniseries, 6 episodes, directed by Oliver Jahn, after his student’s film from 1998.
the authors of Ijon Tichy: Raumpilot, created two short films Aus den Sterntagebüchern des Ijon Tichy From the Star Diaries of Ijon Tichy and Aus den Sterntagebüchern des Ijon Tichy II (2000). The former won the audience award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival in 1999.
Solaris (Соларис, 2007), Multimedia project (video, music, dance and text) by Zlatko Slavenski
1 (2008, by Pater Sparrow)
How the World was Saved (2008), adapted from the story in The Cyberiad, by Sinking Ship Productions as part of their theatrical production there will come soft rains. The show premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival.
Solaris 29 July 2007, BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial radio play adaptation, 2 one-hour episodes, adapted by Hattie Naylor, produced by Polly Thomas.
Thirty-Minute Theatre: Roly Poly (1969) — by Michael Hart (Great Britain), scenario of one part was based on the story «Do you exist Mr Jones?»
Maska (2010 film) («The Mask», 2010), directed by the Brothers Quay, based on Lem’s short story of the same title
The Congress (2013), directed by Ari Folman
The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy (2020), adapted from The Star Diaries, by Sinking Ship Productions and Theater in Quarantine, as a piece of live-streamed digital theater.
Musical adaptations
The Cyberiad (1970; 2nd version 1985), an opera by Krzysztof Meyer; broadcast by Polish Television (1st act, 1971), staged in Wuppertal (Germany) (1986)
Solaris (2010-2012) (2012), an opera by Detlev Glanert, libretto by Reinhard Palm, staged in Bregenz (Germany) (2012)
Texts by Lem were set to music by Esa-Pekka Salonen in his 1982 piece, Floof.
