Happy Birthday, Stanislaw

Today in Lviv - then in Poland though now in Ukraine - in 1921, Stanislaw Lem was born. After WWII he basically invented the genre of far-future science fiction, using it to explore philosophical themes in an often satirical fashion. In the west, his best known novel is probably Solaris, but His Master's Voice and Fiasco, along with the Cyberiad, are also well known.

Last year, the (I think excellent) Russian film version of Solaris was cited as the definitive example of кино арт-хаус (kino art-khaus, art house film) by one of my students - we were discussing the translation of an article about Fyodor Bondarchuk, not an art-house director.