An early realist novel by Stanislaw Lem, taking place in a Polish
psychiatric hospital during World War II.
Taking place within the confines of a psychiatric hospital, Stanislaw
Lem's The Hospital of the Transfiguration tells the story of a young
doctor working in a Polish asylum during World War II. At first the
asylum seems like a bucolic refuge, but a series of sinister encounters
and incidents reveal an underlying brutality. The doctor begins to seek
relief in the strange conversation of the poet Sekulowski, who is posing
as a patient in a bid for safety from the occupying German forces.
Meanwhile, Resistance fighters stockpile weapons in the surrounding
woods.
A very early work by Lem, The Hospital of the Transfiguration is
partly autobiographical, drawing on the author's experiences as a
medical student. Written in 1948, it was suppressed by Polish censors
and not published until 1955. The censorship of this realist novel is
partly what led Lem to focus on science fiction and nonfiction for the
rest of his career.