The Snail on the Slope

Kandid, the name of the program is taken from a science fiction novel written by Arkadi and Boris Strugatzki. Two brothers and famous writers of Soviet science fiction literature. Kandid is a man lost in a very strange and surrealistic environment. This world is natural, in the sense that it is not a technical artefact, but seems to be very unnatural due to its high degree of growth and mutation. For Kandid there is no way back from this alien forest to the town. Even the way out seems to be unstable.

The Strugatzki brothers began by publishing science fiction texts which were more or less consistent with the heroic myth of the Soviet Union. But these publication were followed by texts where it is difficult to understand how they got past the censors. In the Soviet Union, science fiction was supposed to convey a positive image of heroes to young people. But science fiction developed into a medium for authors to express criticism of the system. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the brothers were able to publish “The Doomed City”. They had kept the manuscript hidden for years for fear of imprisonment.

The Snail on the Slope, Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky, 1966

Original title: Ulitka na Sklone