Janusz Zajdel

His works have been translated into Belorussian, Bulgarian, Czech, Esperanto, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Russian and Slovenian. As of August 2015, the only work translated into English is the short story Wyjątkowo trudny teren ("Particularly Difficult Territory") that Zajdel wrote for the English language Tales from the Planet Earth anthology edited by Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull.

On 19 July 1985 he died of lung cancer, after three years' struggle against the disease.

In 1984 Polish fantasy and science fiction fandom (associated with the Polish SF convention Polcon) decided to establish an annual award, initially named Sfinks ("Sphynx"). Janusz A. Zajdel became the first winner of this award, for his 1984 novel Paradyzja. He won the award posthumously in 1985, shortly after his death, at which time it was decided to rename the award after him, and it became known as the Janusz A. Zajdel Award.

He was an active member of Polish and international science fiction fandom, and a Trustee of World SF. In the 1980s he was an active supporter of the Polish Solidarity movement.

In 1973 Zajdel received an honorary award Magnum Trophaeum from the Młody Technik (Young Technician) magazine for long-term cooperation. In 1980 Zajdel received the Polish Ministry of Culture and Arts Best SF Book of the Year Award for Van Troff's Cylinder. Zajdel also received the Golden Sepulka Award two times: for Limes Inferior (1982 novel; 1983 award) and Wyjście z cienia ("Out of the Shadow") (1983 novel; 1984 award).

His first book was published in 1965, a short-story anthology, Jad mantezji (The Venom of Mantesia), which included stories from Młody Technik and some others that had already appeared a year earlier in another anthology. By 1982 he had published four more collections: Przejście przez lustro (Through the Mirror, 1975); Iluzyt (1976); Feniks (The Phoenix, 1981); and Ogon diabła (The Devil's Tail, 1982).

In his spare time, he popularized science by writing science fiction. With his brother, he started a column in a Polish magazine for young people interested in science and engineering, Młody Technik [pl] (Young Technician), in which they proposed various futuristic gadgets. In 1961 Młody Technik published Zajdel's science-fiction debut, the short story "Tau Ceti" (Polish: Tau Wieloryba). Other stories by him soon appeared in several other Polish magazines.

Zajdel's early works, from the 1960s and early 1970s, focuses on scientific inventions and their role in space exploration, alien contact or artificial intelligence. As his writing career continued, however, his stories evolved to focus on the social aspects and often negative consequences of those inventions. Over time, a theme became increasingly visible in his works - a concern over dangers inherent in attempts to control the human society. He is also condemning human ignorance, warning against xenophobia, and asking philosophical questions about the nature of the universe, happiness and human destiny. Zajdel's works from his second period - late 1970s and 1980s - and represent the genres of social and dystopian fiction. In his works, he envisions totalitarian states and societies living under extreme forms of mass surveillance.

Janusz Andrzej Zajdel (15 August 1938 – 19 July 1985) was a Polish science fiction author, second in popularity in Poland to Stanisław Lem. His major genres were social science fiction and dystopia. His main recurring theme involved the gloomy prospects for a space environment into which mankind carried totalitarian ideas and habits: Red Space Republics, or Space Labor Camps, or both. His heroes desperately try to find meaning in the world around them.

Janusz Zajdel was born 15 August 1938 in Warsaw, Poland. He studied physics at the University of Warsaw. After graduating, he worked many years as a radiological engineer and an expert on nuclear physics at the Central Laboratory of Radiological Protection in Poland. He published a number of academic works, handbooks of safety regulations, as well as educational and popular science texts.