Stanisław Lem's ruptured biography

Stanisław Lem. Exiled from High Castle by Agnieszka Gajewska (Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2021 sheds some new light on work of the most acclaimed Polish writer.

I moved away from the colorful illustrations of the other Lem's covers I designed over the years. This is, after all, a biography governed by the tragedy of the German occupation and the Holocaust. I wanted to use Lem's portrait, and at the same time, I was keen to show the wartime rupture in his biography. That's why the title is divided by the photograph. The darker field in the bottom part of the cover together with the vertically cropped portrait form a large letter 'L': the first letter of his name.

When I put it all together, I noticed that Lem looks as if he was peeking through a crack in the door. As if he was making sure that the threat had passed. The expression on his face says that the anxiety stayed with him forever.