THEMERSON, Stefan

(1910-1988)

   Polish-born author, scriptwriter and photographer, active in Poland in the 1930s, there editing journals and publishing widely; in the UK from before the beginning of WWII, he continued publishing in Polish and French, but increasingly turned to English. He was a member of the College de 'Pataphysique and founded the Gaberbocchus Press. Given over asthey were to paradox, games of logic and the dislocations of Semantic Poetry (his own term), ST's novels have never been easy to pigeonhole butcan be thought of - very roughly - as exuberant FABULATIONS. In Professor Mmaa's Lecture (1953), which comes as close to conventional sf as any ofhis books, the eponymous termite lectures his audience on the vast new primitive creatures called mammals, which are threatening to take over the world; the book had an introduction by Bertrand RUSSELL. Though they radically displace the normal world, none of his other fictions could be called sf; but his last 2 novels - The Mystery of the Sardine (1986) and Hobson's Island (1988) - assemble many characters from previous books intoworlds which are mirrors of our own - an Anti-Earth floats in the heavens of the first tale - where they engage in levitations, speculations and prestidigitations galore.

   JC

   Other works: Bayamus (1949); Wooff Wooff, or Who Killed Richard Wagner? (1951); Cardinal Polatuo (1961); Tom Harris (1967); Special Branch (A Dialogue) (1972 chap); General Piesc, or The Case of the Forgotten Mission (1976 chap).