excited to see that Bill Johnston has done the first direct Polish-to-English translation of Stanisław Lem's novel Solaris." />

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New Translation of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris

Michael Orthofer is excited to see that Bill Johnston has done the first direct Polish-to-English translation of Stanisław Lem’s novel Solaris.

So that loud triumphant cheer you might have heard, that was me, reveling in what may well be the publishing announcement of 2011 (that David Foster Wallace book ? get serious ….. Okay, there is 1Q84, but otherwise …): yes, apparently the First ever direct English translation of Solaris published — so reports Alison Flood in The Guardian:

The first ever direct translation into English of the Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem’s most famous novel, Solaris, has just been published, removing a raft of unnecessary changes and restoring the text much closer to its original state.

That’s cool and all, but here’s the strange thing: this translation is currently only available as an audiobook. It’ll be published in 6 months as an ebook, and “Lem’s heirs are hoping to overcome legal issues to release it as a print edition as well.”

Things are getting very strange in the world when a book could conceivably go from audio to electronic and end in a print edition.

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  1. For Anyone Who Had Their Idea Of Solaris Ruined By George Clooney Read Andrew’s thoughts on the novel. Makes me want to read it. His depiction of men struggling in terror with the possibility that the planet...
  2. Darwish in Translation We’ll be publishing an excellent review/essay on the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in issue 18 of The Quarterly Conversation. In advance of that, The...
  3. The Travails of Translation I saw Erica Mena’s extremely generous take on an awful situation linked to at Constant Conversation, and I wanted to put it up here too:...
  4. English Title Translation The Literary Saloon: Strictly speaking, 'English' is the correct translation; however the Chinese title — 英格力士 — is the phonetic rendering of the word 'English'...
  5. In Translation The Guardian asks 10 experts to recommend 10 writers not writing in English that we should be reading. Of the 10, 2 ring a bell:...

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June 16th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: Uncategorized

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