Much of Lem’s work has roots in earlier Polish writers, now all of them in process of urgent revaluation. They include Cyprian Norwid, the 19th-century poet and thinker who anticipated most of the pressing concerns of the 20th century, and who ought to be as internationally famous as Baudelaire or Carlyle; the mystical Tadeusz Micinsky; and, above all, the incomparable “Witkacy”, Stanislaw Witkiewicz (1885-1939), author of the incomparable novel Insatiability.

It was in this extraordinary tradition that Lem wrote, for all that he chose the science-fiction form — and he was a prime examplar of it. He was a true polymath and at the same time a virtuoso storyteller. He was truly described as “one of the deep spirits of the age”.