The Paris Review has an article on great Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem’s view of the future (and, of course, present) of humanity entitled “The Future According to Stanisław Lem”. The occasion is the screen adaptation of Lem’s 1971 novella The Futurological Congress, translated into English by Michael Kandel, into a film called The Congress by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman. It looks like a very free form adaptation but sounds like it still imparts the message that were doomed, so I guess that’s good.
Read my review of Kandel-translated sci-fi/fantasy anthology A Polish Book of Monsters in Literalab and of On the Road to Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk in The Cerise Press.
Translating science-fiction
With the Brooklyn Book Festival about to kick off those of you in the vicinity of that borough will have the opportunity to see the aforementioned Michael Kandel among a group of sci-fi translators discussing their craft. On Sept. 18, PEN is sponsoring the awesomely-named Imaginary Gardens With Real Robots in Them, in which Kandel, Ross Benjamin, Terry Gallagher and Sal Robinson the specific difficulties of translating science-fiction from Polish, German and Japanese.
Ukrainian science-fiction
At Words Without Borders, Uilleam Blacker writes about the relative uniqueness of being a Ukrainian sci-fi writer, which is what Taras Antypovych happens to be. Antypovych’s novel Chronos is about “the discovery of a way to put off death” with a new invention that allows time to be captured, measured, and traded. Read an excerpt from the novel translated by Blacker on WWB here.
Photo – from The Congress by Ari Folman
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