Michael Kandel

Michael Kandel in 2005

Michael Kandel (born 1941) is an American translator and author of science fiction. He received a doctorate in Slavistics from Indiana University, and is an editor at the Modern Language Association. Kandel is also a part-time editor at Harcourt, editing (among others) Ursula K. Le Guin's work.^[1]

Kandel is perhaps best known for his translations of the works of Stanisław Lem from Polish to English. Recently he has also been translating works of other Polish science fiction authors, such as Jacek Dukaj, Marek Huberath and Andrzej Sapkowski. The quality of his translations is considered to be excellent^{[by whom?]} and is especially notable in the case of Lem's writing, which makes heavy use of wordplay and other difficult-to-translate devices.

Bibliography

Novels

• Strange Invasion (1989)
• In Between Dragons (1990)
• Captain Jack Zodiac (1991)
• Panda Ray (1996)

Short fiction

• "Acolytes" (1997) in The Horns of Elfland (ed. Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Donald G. Keller)

Translations

Of Stanisław Lem's Works

• Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (with Christine Rose, 1973)
• The Cyberiad (1974)
• The Futurological Congress (1974)
• The Star Diaries (1976)
• Mortal Engines (1977)
• A Perfect Vacuum (1978)
• His Master's Voice (1983)
• Fiasco (1987)
• Peace on Earth (with Elinor Ford, 1994)
• Highcastle: A Remembrance (1995)

Of Paweł Huelle's Works

• Who Was David Weiser? (1992)
• Moving House and Other Stories (1995)

Editor and Translator

• A Polish Book of Monsters: Five Dark Tales from Contemporary Poland (2010, contains stories by Marek Huberath, Andrzej Sapkowski, Tomasz Kołodziejczak, Andrzej Zimniak, and Jacek Dukaj)

Quotation

"We want the Demon, you see, to extract from the dance of atoms only information that is genuine, like mathematical theorems, fashion magazines, blueprints, historical chronicles, or a recipe for ion crumpets, or how to clean and iron a suit of asbestos, and poetry too, and scientific advice, and almanacs, and calendars, and secret documents, and everything that ever appeared in any newspaper in the Universe, and telephone books of the future..."

Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad (tr. Michael Kandel)

Notes

1. ^ Kandel, "Being an Editor"

External links

• Michael Kandel on Words Without Borders
• "Being an Editor" by Michael Kandel
• Michael Kandel at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Persondata
Name	Kandel, Michael
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Date of birth	1941
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