Stanisław Lem. Wypędzony z Wysokiego Zamku

Agnieszka Gajewska

NIKE PRIZE 2022 - LONGLIST


Keynote
An in-depth and comprehensive biography
of one of the twentieth century’s most
important writers – a visionary, essayist,
and prose writer, discovered by generation
after generation, and not just by fans of
science fiction.
Selling Points
 A tale of one of the twentieth century’s
most fascinating writers.
 The first comprehensive biography of
Stanisław Lem – the author has gained
access to his private family archives,
documents that have been jealously
guarded.
 The book also explores writer’s prewar
biography in detail, his life in Lwów,
about which little has been told. She also
consults records held in the archive of
the Polish Secret Services.
 This book is an interesting tale of Lem’s
upbringing – the assimilated Jewish
intelligentsia, prewar Lwów, and its unique
intellectual and cultural atmosphere.
 The biographer has found an original
way of depicting Lem and the people who
surrounded and shaped him – his family,
friends, and the Polish intellectual elite
before and after World War II. This allows
her to grasp many important and elusive
contexts for his work.

Gajewska is an academic scholar who
is noted in university circles and among
respected authorities on Lem’s work.
Description
Stanisław Lem was surely one of the most
important and fascinating figures in
world twentieth-century literature.
A visionary, often called a genius,
a penetrating observer of contemporary
life, and a sharp essayist. At the same
time, he was a mysterious figure who
was most reluctant to divulge stories of
his life. Scholar Agnieszka Gajewska has,
however, managed to create the writer’s
first complete biography – incorporating
not only his remarkable work, but
also numerous encrypted (and mostly
unfamiliar) contexts, such as his childhood
and early youth in Lwów, his complicated
family relationships, and his unexpected
intellectual friendships in postwar Cracow.
The biographer has gained access to
never-before-seen archives and documents
(including those from his Lwów period and
a communist-era Secret-Services report),
giving us a multidimensional picture of
Lem, a man firmly grounded in his epoch.
“The most comprehensive biography
of Stanisław Lem to date. The author
has gained access to a great deal of new
material. She has managed to make a great
many findings in Lem’s wartime biography,
including where he hid, and where his
parents did as well. The author has done
a titanic job in recreating Lem’s genealogy.
As she reconstructs it, the trajectory of his
work assembles into a moving sketch of
a human life”.
Tomasz Fiałkowski, Tygodnik Powszechny
“Reading Expelled from the High Castle
forces the reader to reflect again and
again: How is it possible that for so many
years we failed to see all the references to
the Jews and Lem’s wartime experiences,
scattered liberally throughout the writer’s
books?
(…) Gajewska has taken a sensitive and
probing perspective, arduously sifting

the source documents and
archives. This is reflected in the size of
the book: it contains over 700 pages,
the footnotes alone amounting to over
fifty pages. This book is monumental
not only in size, but also in the scope of
the subjects broached”.
Anna Michalik, Histmag.org
“But she goes with Stanisław, trying to
reconstruct his psychological motivations
and circumstances, from his school
days and his early study passions,
the nightmare of the Nazis (even
the description of what he endured is hard
to bear), studies, and «repatriation» to
Krakow. She outlines the various stages of
his writing career: from the first poems,
through a few intense years when his
best science-fiction novels were written
(the turn of the 1950s and 60s), to his
futurological essays, of which, as a science
enthusiast, he was most proud. And in this
book, Gajewska stresses Lem’s concealing
his Jewish identity, as well as his reasons
for doing so, and how this is reflected in
his work and personality: this man who
had been through hell escaped off to
the stars”.
Dorota Szwarcman, Polityka
“Reading Agnieszka Gajewska’s
monumental Stanisław Lem: Expelled
from the High Castle is a transfixing
experience. This scholar from Poznań
has documented the life of one man in
700 pages, and yet has also managed to
depict the mechanisms of repressing
post-pogrom trauma and shame at «being
a survivor»”.
Krzysztof Siwczyk, Gazeta Wyborcza
Target Market
Readers of Lem’s novels.
Readers of science-fiction novels.
Those interested in Polish history.
Those who read biographies.


Release date: 2021
Pages: 712
ISBN: 978-83-08-07452-7


Request manuscript

Stanisław Lem. Banished from The High Castle

Agnieszka Gajewska

NIKE PRIZE 2022 - LONGLIST


Keynote
An in-depth and comprehensive biography
of one of the twentieth century’s most
important writers – a visionary, essayist,
and prose writer, discovered by generation
after generation, and not just by fans of
science fiction.
Selling Points
 A tale of one of the twentieth century’s
most fascinating writers.
 The first comprehensive biography of
Stanisław Lem – the author has gained
access to his private family archives,
documents that have been jealously
guarded.
 The book also explores writer’s prewar
biography in detail, his life in Lwów,
about which little has been told. She also
consults records held in the archive of
the Polish Secret Services.
 This book is an interesting tale of Lem’s
upbringing – the assimilated Jewish
intelligentsia, prewar Lwów, and its unique
intellectual and cultural atmosphere.
 The biographer has found an original
way of depicting Lem and the people who
surrounded and shaped him – his family,
friends, and the Polish intellectual elite
before and after World War II. This allows
her to grasp many important and elusive
contexts for his work.

Gajewska is an academic scholar who
is noted in university circles and among
respected authorities on Lem’s work.
Description
Stanisław Lem was surely one of the most
important and fascinating figures in
world twentieth-century literature.
A visionary, often called a genius,
a penetrating observer of contemporary
life, and a sharp essayist. At the same
time, he was a mysterious figure who
was most reluctant to divulge stories of
his life. Scholar Agnieszka Gajewska has,
however, managed to create the writer’s
first complete biography – incorporating
not only his remarkable work, but
also numerous encrypted (and mostly
unfamiliar) contexts, such as his childhood
and early youth in Lwów, his complicated
family relationships, and his unexpected
intellectual friendships in postwar Cracow.
The biographer has gained access to
never-before-seen archives and documents
(including those from his Lwów period and
a communist-era Secret-Services report),
giving us a multidimensional picture of
Lem, a man firmly grounded in his epoch.
“The most comprehensive biography
of Stanisław Lem to date. The author
has gained access to a great deal of new
material. She has managed to make a great
many findings in Lem’s wartime biography,
including where he hid, and where his
parents did as well. The author has done
a titanic job in recreating Lem’s genealogy.
As she reconstructs it, the trajectory of his
work assembles into a moving sketch of
a human life”.
Tomasz Fiałkowski, Tygodnik Powszechny
“Reading Expelled from the High Castle
forces the reader to reflect again and
again: How is it possible that for so many
years we failed to see all the references to
the Jews and Lem’s wartime experiences,
scattered liberally throughout the writer’s
books?
(…) Gajewska has taken a sensitive and
probing perspective, arduously sifting

the source documents and
archives. This is reflected in the size of
the book: it contains over 700 pages,
the footnotes alone amounting to over
fifty pages. This book is monumental
not only in size, but also in the scope of
the subjects broached”.
Anna Michalik, Histmag.org
“But she goes with Stanisław, trying to
reconstruct his psychological motivations
and circumstances, from his school
days and his early study passions,
the nightmare of the Nazis (even
the description of what he endured is hard
to bear), studies, and «repatriation» to
Krakow. She outlines the various stages of
his writing career: from the first poems,
through a few intense years when his
best science-fiction novels were written
(the turn of the 1950s and 60s), to his
futurological essays, of which, as a science
enthusiast, he was most proud. And in this
book, Gajewska stresses Lem’s concealing
his Jewish identity, as well as his reasons
for doing so, and how this is reflected in
his work and personality: this man who
had been through hell escaped off to
the stars”.
Dorota Szwarcman, Polityka
“Reading Agnieszka Gajewska’s
monumental Stanisław Lem: Expelled
from the High Castle is a transfixing
experience. This scholar from Poznań
has documented the life of one man in
700 pages, and yet has also managed to
depict the mechanisms of repressing
post-pogrom trauma and shame at «being
a survivor»”.
Krzysztof Siwczyk, Gazeta Wyborcza
Target Market
Readers of Lem’s novels.
Readers of science-fiction novels.
Those interested in Polish history.
Those who read biographies.


Release date: 2021
Pages: 712
ISBN: 978-83-08-07452-7