About the work
“Solaris” is a science fiction novel by the Polish writer Stanisław Lem, written in Zakopane between 1959 and 1960 and published in Warsaw in 1961. A German translation by Irmtraud Zimmermann-Göllheim appeared in 1972. On stage the material is performed in separate adaptations that keep the title of the novel.
Plot
The psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at a research station above the planet Solaris, which is almost entirely covered by an ocean that appears to be a thinking being. Shortly before, one of the scientists, Gibarian, has taken his own life, and the two others, Snaut and Sartorius, behave strangely. The ocean sends the humans visitors shaped from their guilt-laden memories; Kelvin is visited by his dead lover Harey, for whose death he feels responsible.
Cultural significance
The novel is regarded as a masterpiece of science fiction and explores the limits of human understanding when faced with an entirely alien intelligence. It has been filmed several times, most famously by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and by Steven Soderbergh in 2002, and has served as the basis for operas, including one by Detlev Glanert from 2012.