STERNBERG, Jacques

(1923-)

   Belgian writer. A particularly idiosyncratic author with a keen sense of the absurd, JS built from 1953 a unique body of work, often only tenuously linked to sf, where everyday situations logically degenerate into darkly humorous nightmares. Toi, ma nuit (1956; trans Lowell Bair as Sexualis '95 1967 US) is a witty presentation of the dawn of a new age ofsexual excess. Futurs sans avenir (coll 1971; incomplete trans Frank Zero as Future without Future 1974 US) is a representative selection; the title story, an astonishingly bleak DYSTOPIA set at the end of the 20th century, is typical in its progress from grey reality through surreal black wit down to the end of time itself. JS also wrote the script for Alain Resnais's only sf film, JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME (1968). As the 1970sprogressed, his work showed less and less attachment to genre devices.

MJ

   Other works: La geometrie dans l'impossible ("Impossible Geometry") (coll 1953); La sortie est au fond de l'espace ("The Way Out is at the Bottom of Space") (1956), a black comedy set in space and featuring the last human survivors of a bacterial HOLOCAUST; Entre deux mondes incertains ("Between Two Uncertain Worlds") (coll 1957); La geometrie dans la terreur ("Geometry in Terror") (coll 1958); L'employe ("The Employer") (1958); Univers zero ("Universe Zero") (coll 1970); Attention, planetehabitee ("Beware, Inhabited Planet") (1970); Contes Glaces ("Icy Tales") (coll 1974); Sophie, la mer, la nuit ("Sophie, the Sea, the Night")(1976); Le navigateur ("The Navigator") (1977).

   See also: BENELUX; FRANCE; PERCEPTION.