Lem, the Prophet

Reading
time 4 minutes

was an Editor at Przekroj.pl/EN. He is also a translator, co-author of a book about the Polish language “Quarks, Elephants and Pierogi”, and a senior staff writer at Culture.pl, where he writes about Polish culture for non-Polish speakers.

How did Stanisław Lem imagine the future? It turns out that we live surrounded by technologies and gadgets, the development, introduction, and workings of which were accurately predicted by the sci-fiction writer half a century ago—from the internet to smartphones and 3D printers. What other formerly dreamed tomorrow still awaits us?

The Internet and Google (Lem: the Trion Library)

“Trion can store not only luminescent images, reduced to a change in their crystal structure, that is images of book pages, not only all kinds of photographs, maps, images, graphs and tables—in other words, anything that can be observed by sight. Just as easily, Trion can store sounds, the human voice as well as music, there is also a way to record scents.”

Obłok Magellana [The Magellanic Cloud] (1955)

Smartphones

“We use it today without even thinking about the efficiency and might of this great, invisible net which enlaces the globe. Whether it

Information

You’ve reached your free article’s limit this month. You can get unlimited access to all our articles and audio content with our digital subscription. If you have an active subscription, please log in.

Subscribe

Mikołaj Gliński:

was an Editor at Przekroj.pl/EN. He is also a translator, co-author of a book about the Polish language “Quarks, Elephants and Pierogi”, and a senior staff writer at Culture.pl, where he writes about Polish culture for non-Polish speakers.

Translation: Agata Masłowska

Publish date: 17.09.2021

Also read:

Dariusz Kuźma:

is a film journalist, translator, regular contributor to the Camerimage film festival and one of its selectors. He has a degree in English Studies and American Studies. He is passionate about world cinema and unconventional television series. His articles have been published by numerous Polish magazines and online media.

He was translated by more than eighty different people in the Soviet Union, listed in Russian philosophical dictionaries, and Soviet boys were named Stanisław in his honor. Why exactly was Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem—the author of Solaris—so well-received in the USSR?

Master writer and acclaimed futurologist Stanisław Lem’s immense influence on Polish—and indeed global—science fiction is still felt today in how we discuss and contemplate the prospects of humankind. Maybe even more so than in the country’s troubled communist past, when his audacious visions served as an exciting glimpse into the multiverse of possible future normalities and, simultaneously, a heart-stopping reminder of what may await beyond our provincial Plato’s cave.

The Internet and Google (Lem: the Trion Library)

Smartphones

Also read:

Мастер Lem: How Stanisław Lem’s Sci-Fi Conquered the USSR

Login

Register