SOURCE: “Twenty-Two Answers and Two Postscripts: An Interview with Stanislaw Lem,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 13, Pt. 3, November, 1986, pp. 242–60.

In the following interview, originally conducted in May 1985, Lem discusses his approach to discursive and fictional writing, his literary and philosophical influences, and the problem of art and speculative philosophy in an age dominated by science and technology.

The present interview was conducted in writing, following conversations that I had with Lem in Vienna in May of 1985 and a year-long correspondence that surrounded them. Our original plan had been to converse with the help of a Polish-English interpreter. But when I arrived in Vienna, no appropriate interpreter was available. Lem had no desire to speak for the record in English or, through a third-language interpreter, in German or French. With the help of Dr. Franz Rottensteiner's able mediation from German, and Lem's own quite competent English, Lem and I did...