I am finally going to read this classic sci-fi novel.

I started to read the (West) German translation by Irmtraud Zimmermann-Göllheim but found the language to be rather stilted, lacking any natural flow and frequently using peculiar turns of phrase. This made me look for alternative translations.

There is apparently another German translation by Kurt Kelp, which was published in the GDR (East Germany). This version gets some praise online for being the better translation but it apparently also leaves out some stuff and is shorter than the original Polish work, although I did not find any details. There are also no recent printings of this version, and of course no ebook edition. So for those reasons, this translation was out as well.

The original English translation by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox is itself based on an earlier French translation instead of on the original work. I can‘t imagine that process being great for the end result, and therefore decided to skip this one.

Fortunately, there is a more recent English translation by Bill Johnston from 2011, which is apparently the first direct English translation from the original Polish work. That is the version I have finally settled on, after I read the first few pages and found it much more readable than Irmtraud Zimmermann-Göllheim‘s German translation.

The major downside of the Johnston version is that it is only available for Kindle, not as an EPUB, not as a printed volume. If you want to read it on any other e-reader, you will have to get “creative”. Oh and there are also printed editions of this translation from Conversation Tree Press which start at an eye-watering price of 275 $ and go up to 2695 $ for the limited Lettered Edition. Yikes! All sold out by the way! 😳