Rethinking Theory

In The Lem Reader, Peter Swirski has assembled an in-depth and insightful collection of writings by and about, and interviews with, one of the most fascinating writers of the twentieth century.

Stanislaw Lem has a large and devoted following. Best known for his work in science fiction -- his novels and short stories have been translated into over forty languages and have sold over twenty-five million copies -- Lem is also a prolific writer of nonfiction monographs. Though not widely available in English, Lem's extensive studies of literary and contemporary culture, and of philosophy, rhetoric, and social theory, have been widely read and analyzed in their original Polish and in German and Russian translations.

The Lem Reader forms an introduction to Lem's nonfiction oeuvre: it includes two interviews conducted with Lem, as well as a fascinating introductory essay by Swirski and an essay by Lem himself, "Thirty Years Later", in which he discusses the predictions he has made in his extensive philosophical works. Chief among the works discussed is Lem's Summa Technologiae (1964), in which Lem presents a series of wide-ranging prognoses on the social, cultural, and technological destiny of our civilization. Lem also analyzes the cognitive parallels, aesthetic differences, and shared social responsibilities of the science of futurology and the literary genre of science fiction. Included are a complete bibliography of Lem's works in English and Polish, and a bibliography of critical sources.

Anyone interested in Lem's provocative and uncompromising view of literature's role in the contemporary cultural environment, in Lem's opinions about his own fiction, and about the relation ofliterature to science and technology, will be fascinated by this eclectic collection.