http://mywebpage.netscape.com/stanislawlempl/1: The main reason why I have decided to translate again Lem's "Solaris" is that the original English language translation by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (copyright for this translation is held by F. & F. Walker & Co., 1970) was not made from Polish, but from the French translation, so it is of inferior quality, as is the Soderbergh's movie.
Even the names of the heroes of "Solaris" were changed by Kilmartin and Cox As this "second hand" translation was a basis for the Soderbergh's screenplay, so instead of Harey we have Rheya (in the Hollywood movie Natascha McElhone), instead of Kris - Chris (George Clooney), Snaut was changed to more English-like Snow (Jeremy Davies), maybe because someone of the translators did not like the Germans, and only Gibarian (Ulrich Tukur) survived "unimproved". Sartorius, which was present in the first version of the screenplay was replaced by Hollywood by dark-skinned Dr. Helen Gordon (Viola Davis), as a tribute to the so-called political correctness (there is a Negroes in the original novel, but only as a guest haunting one of the white, Caucasian, scientists, not as a physicist, as in the Hollywood substitute).
2. My translation is based on 1999 edition by Wydawnictwo Literackie in Cracow (
www.wl.interkom.pl).
3. This is only a "rough" translation, or a draft, subject to future editorial changes.