| Sumario: | This paper aims to explore the implications of the ongoing evolution of science and technology on the human subject's relationship with temporality. How are categories such as imagination, memory, and emotion redefined in this new context? To what extent do recent reconfigurations challenge a set of values long considered essential to our species? These are just a few of the questions we will reflect upon, starting from Orbital, Samantha Harvey's 2023 novel. Our reading will focus on the parabolic dimension of this poetic, unsettling, and profound work that manages to outline a radically different perspective on the human individual's relationship with our planet. In this connection, we can identify compelling parallels with two novels published several decades ago in the Eastern European literary space: Solaris by Stanisław Lem (1961) and The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chinghiz Aitmatov (1980). All three works essentially go beyond the conventions of science fiction, imagining strange parables of the human condition within non-human contexts.
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