September 12, 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Polish science fiction master Lem, and the commemoration activities have begun around the world, and Poland has directly named 2021 as the "Year of Lyme". Yilin Publishing House launched the first set of "Lyme Collections" in the simplified world Chinese, including his six masterpieces: "Solaris Star", "Futurology Congress", "The Voice of its Lord", "Invincible", "Fiasco", and "Eden". Among them, the Star of Solaris is a new translation, and the other five are the first translations. The birth of this set of "Lyme Anthology" showed the charm of this top science fiction writer to Chinese readers for the first time.
LEM: I'm interested in the fate of humanity
Stanisław lem is the most dazzling sci-fi titan in Polish literature. Born in 1921 in Lviv, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), Lem was born into a wealthy family of doctors, worked as an automobile mechanic, and eventually received a doctorate in medicine, founding the Polish Aerospace Association. In his lifetime, he wrote more than thirty novels and many short stories, which were translated into 52 languages and sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, such as "Solaris Star", "Futurology Conference", "Fiasco" and so on. He single-handedly elevated Polish science fiction to the world level, and in 1996 was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the Polish National Medal, after which Poland's first artificial satellite was named.
Many people know Lem, starting from "Solaris Star", which is a well-deserved masterpiece of Lem, solaris star is covered by a mysterious blue ocean, which is like a mirror, reflecting the deepest obsession and longing, confusion and fear of the human heart. In 1972 and 2002, the novel was adapted to the screen by Andrei Tarkovsky and Steven Soderbergh respectively, especially the adaptation of Tarkovsky's "Flying into Space", which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the International Film Critics Association Award in the same year, creating a classic in film history, alongside "2001: A Space Odyssey", becoming a science fiction film masterpiece that fans cannot shake.
Lem's work focuses on philosophical themes, exploring the impact of technology on human beings, the nature of intelligence, extraterrestrial communication, and the limitations of human cognition. As early as 70 years ago, he predicted the emergence of the Internet, search engines, virtual reality and 3D printing, bluntly saying that humanity will encounter the challenge of artificial intelligence and information explosion: "I am interested in the fate of the whole human race, not the fate of the individual." ”
The translator said: "After translating Lemme's Fiasco, I don't want to do translation work anymore! ”
On the occasion of the centenary of Lem's birth, the Chinese edition of the anthology was launched by Yilin Publishing House, which explored the boundaries of human cognition with poetic brushstrokes and profound philosophical thoughts. After the copyright is finalized, for publishers, finding a translator becomes the primary problem that needs to be solved. As a philosophical Polish writer, the difficulty of translating Lem's works is unprecedented. After a long period of weighing, Yilin Publishing House and the Lyme Foundation chose to translate from high-quality English and German translations, and invited six senior science fiction translators to take on the responsibility, including Jing Zhenzhong, Xu Donghua, Chen Zhuo, etc., to ensure the accuracy of the relevant terminology.
"After translating Lemme's Fiasco, I never wanted to do translation again!" Chen Zhuo, who has provoked the "science fiction ghost" Philip Dick to translate the works of the girder and has rich experience in science fiction translation, said so. He said that the difficulty of translating Fiasco is mainly reflected in Lem's extensive knowledge and philosophical speculation, he often describes extremely detailed technical details to deduce the evolution of the universe, life and technology, and will use extremely complex sentences to deal with some special scenes, sometimes a single sentence has hundreds of words.
Chen Zhuo's translation of "Fiasco" is Lem's sealed work, telling the story of the human expedition to force a strange alien civilization into a desperate situation step by step, and is the largest work in the "Lyme Anthology" published this time. Lem ponders the fate of mankind and the development of technology, presents a great deal of technical details and the ethics of technology in the novel, and wraps the ideological edifice he constructs in a wonderful imagination, fascinating adventure and fascinating plot, but also sets up multiple labyrinths for the translation. In the end, Chen Zhuo handed over a satisfactory answer.
It is also understood that the "Lyme Collection" has been listed on the shelves of major networks and bookstore channels, and its popularity is hot. Renowned designer Fu Yulin designed the Lem Collection, and the cover elements of each book are carefully drawn from the main plot or core imagery of the book, and abstracted to highlight the modern sense. The boxed edition of the anthology (all six volumes) comes with six postcards and a centenary poster with Lyme's biography, a list of major works and related commentaries for Chinese readers.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Zhiyi
Editor/Cui Wei