Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem (1921–2006)
the Polish writer-fantast, dramatist,
literary critic and philosopher
Stanislaw Lem was born on 12 September, 1921, in Lvov (Poland at the time). After leaving men’s gymnasium in 1939 he studied medicine in Lvov University (the USSR by then).
During the Nazi occupation Lem worked as a motor mechanic and a welder participating in resistance movement. In spite of Jewish origin, at the wartime his family managed to escape deportation to a ghetto thanks to fake documents. In 1945 Lem repatriated from territory belonging to the USSR and continued studying medicine at Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
In 1946, the writer’s debut work – the story “Man From Mars” written in Lvov was published. His literary success arrived in 1951 with the publication of the novel “The Astronauts”.
Stanislaw Lem’s work is divided into two periods: utopian (from 1946 to 1956 when he wrote the realistic trilogy “Time Not Lost”, the sci-fi novel “The Magellanic Cloud” and many short stories) and anti-utopian (since 1956 that for its turn is divided into three stages: literary-philosophical (1956–1971), literary-experimental (1971–1988) and philosophical- publicistic (since 1988)).
Between 1956 and 1971, Lem published novels “Eden”, “Memoirs Found in a Bathtub”, “Return from the Stars”, “Solaris”, “The Invincible”, “His Master’s Voice” and the autobiographical story “Highcastle”, the series of short stories “The Star Diaries”, “The Cyberiad”, “Tales of Pirx the Pilot” etc, and also literary-philosophical “Dialogues”, “Summa Technologiae”, “Philosophy of Coincidence”, “Fantasy and Futurology”.
In 1973 Lem become the first European to be elected a honorary member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), but in 1976 he was expelled for his critics of science-fiction in general and American science-fiction especially.
Between 1971 and 1982 Lem published “experimental” works: collected reviews and forewords “A Perfect Vacuum” and “Imaginary Magnitudeк” to inexistent books, collected short stories complementary to the earlier series, novels “The Cold” and “Observation on the Spot”.
In 1982, when martial law was enacted in Poland, Stanislaw Lem left for Western Berlin where he got training. Between 1983 and 1988 he lived in Vienne (Austria) where he wrote two last sci-fi novels “”Pokoj na Zieme “ (“Peace on the Earth”) and “Fiasco”.
The writer returned to Poland in 1988. In 1990–2000 Lem published philosophical-publicistic articles in different periodicals. Afterwards the articles were partly published in the collections “Pleasant Times”, “Sex Wars”, “Moloch”, “ My View of Literature” etc.
Stanislaw Lem was awarded with numerous state and literary prizes (including supreme Polish prizes: the Order of the White Eagle (1996) and the Golden Scepter (2001)). Stanislaw Lem also received Doctor honoris causa honorary degree from the Wrocław University of Technology (1982), University of Opole (1997), Lvov State Medical University (1998), Jagiellonian University (1998), the University of Bielefeld (2003, Germany). In 1997, Stanislaw Lem became the honorary citizen of Krakow.
Stanislaw Lem died aged 85 on 27 March, 2006, at a cardiologic hospital in Krakow. According to the writer’s will, the inscription on his tombstone says: “FECI QUOD POTUI, FACIANT MELIORA POTENTES” (Latin “I HAVE DONE WHAT I COULD; THOSE WHO CAN WILL DO BETTER”).
