Marcin Wichary translated one of Lem's stories from Polish to English, and wrote an article about the translation process.

https://mwichary.medium.com/translating-a-stanislaw-lem-stor...

>Marcin Wichary: This is a backstory of why I translated Stanisław Lem’s short story One hundred and thirty-seven seconds.

>Translations of [Lem’s] works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns. — Wikipedia

https://mwichary.medium.com/one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-sec...

>One hundred and thirty-seven seconds: A short story by Stanisław Lem published in 1976, translated from Polish in 2015 by Marcin Wichary

>Translator’s note: This is my first translation of a Stanisław Lem story. I tried to stay true to the spirit of the original as much as possible, which means original occasional odd idioms, mismatched units, and kilometer-long sentences. The story was published in 1976, and predates desktop publishing and the Internet. To the best of my knowledge, Lem has never visited America. If you are interested, read more about why I translated this story and the translation process.

Marcin actually stalked Stanislaw Lem in person when he was a boy:

>Memoirs of a train traveller: The day I stalked Stanisław Lem

>[...] It must’ve been early 1990s when I read somewhere that Stanisław Lem actually lives in Cracow and quickly, with a naïveté characteristic of a 14-year-old, I formulated a plan — I would go and visit him while we were there.

Then he went on years later to create the Lem Google Doodle! (Not to mention the PacMac one too!)

Stanisław Lem on Google’s homepage:

https://mwichary.medium.com/stanislaw-lem-on-google-s-homepa...

60th Anniversary of Stanislaw Lem's First Publication:

https://www.google.com/doodles/60th-anniversary-of-stanislaw...

Interactive Lem Google Doodle:

https://www.google.com/logos/lem/

Stanislaw Lem Google Doodle Album:

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/113565878895173133979/al...

I have always wanted to ask Michael Kandel how he translated the poetry of the Electric Bard from The First Sally of Cyberiad.

Especially the one that is "A love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics. Tensor algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if need be. But with feeling, you understand, and in the cybernetic spirit."

I was curious to see that poem in the original Polish, even though I don't know that language, just to compare them. I'd much appreciate hearing from a native Polish speaker how they compare.

Wonderful Poems:

https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/lem/WonderfulPoems.h...

Horrible Poems:

https://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/lem/HorriblePoems.ht...

I asked Marcin about it, and he linked me to the original Polish version of the Electric Bard -- try translating it to English with google translate to appreciate how astronomically more excellent Michael Kandel's translation is than a machine translation. I really wish I could read and appreciate it in the original Polish!

https://web.archive.org/web/20190814065711/http://niniwa22.c...

Michael Kandel's Wonderful Translation:

This wonderfully apropos epigram was delivered with perfect poise:

The Petty and the Small
Are overcome with gall
When Genius, having faltered, fails to fall.
Klapaucius too, I ween,
Will turn the deepest green
To hear such flawless verse from Trurl's machine.

Google Translate's Horrible Translation:

Trurl was thrashing here and there, suddenly something crackled,
the press and the machine very matter-of-factly, calmly, declared:

Envy, pride, egoism forces us to be petty.
He will experience this by desiring to go with Electricity
In competition, a certain simpleton.
But Klapaucius
The giant will overtake the spirit like a turtle in a car.

Here's an article about Lem translations that aptly describes Michel Kandel:

Stanislaw Lem has finally gotten the translations his genius deserves

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/stanislaw...

>Lem’s fiction is filled with haunting, prescient landscapes. In these reissued and newly issued translations — some by the pitch-perfect Lem-o-phile, Michael Kandel — each sentence is as hard, gleaming and unpredictable as the next marvelous invention or plot twist. It’s hard to keep up with Lem’s hyper-drive of an imagination but always fun to try.