The album ‘Future: ON’, inspired by the works of Stanisław Lem, can be listened to on Chinese streaming services. The radio play was recorded in collaboration with Mao Rui, author of the Chinese translation of The Cyberiad. The publication was produced thanks to the JAZZ PO POLSKU Foundation. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute is a partner of the project.

The album ‘Future: ON’ is a futuristic radio play that presents Lem’s unique style of literature in an abstract way. It combines the world of experimental and ambient music with the narration of one of the Polish master’s most popular books. The music was composed and arranged by Michal Milczarek, composer and guitarist, leader of the MM3 trio, which toured China in 2017 and 2019, visiting major metropolises.

The text layer was recorded by Mao Rui, author of the Chinese translation of ‘Cyberiad’. The recording was published only in digital format and is available on Chinese streaming platforms, including the most popular ones – QQ Music, NetEasy Cloud Music or Kugou Music”.

Stanisław Lem’s works are very popular in China. The first Chinese translation was ‘Solaris’ (2005 and 2014). In 2021, on the occasion of Lem’s Year, as many as nine books were published in Chinese – ‘Cyberiad’, ‘Perfect Vacuum’ ‘Eden’, ‘Fiasco’ ‘The Voice of the Lord’, ‘The Futurological Congress’, ‘The Invincible’, ‘Summa Technologiae’ and ‘Delusional Magnitude’. Interestingly, only ‘Solaris’ and ‘Cyberiad’ were translated directly from Polish, the other books were translated from English.

“Cyberiad” is a series of short stories set in a world of robots. The main characters are Trurl and Klapaucius, who compete with each other and create robots, civilisations, and entire worlds. Their cosmos resembles human reality, full of tyrants, power-hungry twisters and people who believe in superstition. The author mixes a fairy tale and a philosophical story with science fiction.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński