Lem, Stanislaw 1921-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 12, 1921, in Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine); died of heart failure, March 27, 2006, in Krakow, Poland. Author. Lem was one of the most prominent authors of his generation, selling over twenty million copies of his novels, including one of hi best known, Solaris. He first started reading science fiction by authors such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells when he was a child, but as an adult he would declare that he was not a science fiction writer but an author who simply wrote on issues of concern to himself. Lem's youth was a difficult one that included theWorld War II years, during which his Jewish family forged papers and did whatever else they could not to be persecuted by the invading Nazis. As part of this effort to blend in, the young Lem worked as a mechanic for the Germans. However, he secretly sabotaged the automobiles he worked on so that they would break down. From 1939 to 1941, and intermittently in the years following the war, he studied medicine, but when he found himself disagreeing with the Communist doctrine that was infusing the medical philosophy at the time, he dropped out and began to work more on his writing. Early on, he satirized the theories of the Communist agronomist Trofim Lysenko in essays published in a science journal. His first novel, Czas nieutracony, was written in 1948, but was not published in Poland until 1957 because of the sensitive themes it addressed. Published in the United States as Hospital of the Transfiguration (1988), it concerns patients in an insane asylum during the German occupation. Often using his knowledge of science, Lem employed allegory to comment on social conditions under the Communist regime. Because his work became so popular, he managed to get away with writing politically sensitive themes that other writers in the Eastern bloc would have been censored for. This technique employed what many would consider a science fiction style, such as in Solaris, in which Lem actually addresses the theme of paranoia and the science fiction aspect is irrelevant. Directors who adapted the novel to film apparently did not understand this, and Lem criticized both the 1972 adaptation by Andrei Tarkovsky and the 2002 American film by Steven Soderbergh. Among Lem's other books available in English translation areMemoirs Found in a Bathtub (1973), The Futurological Congress (1974), Mortal Engines (1977), Fiasko(1987), and Tales of Prix the Pilot (1990).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Lem, Stanislaw, Highcastle: A Remembrance,translated by Michael Kandel, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1995.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, March 28, 2006, section 2, p. 9.

Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2006, p. B11.

New York Times, March 28, 2006, p. C19.

Times (London, England), March 28, 2006, p. 66.

Washington Post, March 28, 2006, p. B6.