Andrzej Sapkowski

**Andrzej Sapkowski** (born June 21, 1948 in Łódź) is a Polish fantasy writer. Sapkowski studied economics, and before turning to writing, he had worked as a senior sales representative for a foreign trade company. His first short story, "The Witcher" ("Wiedźmin"), was published in Fantastyka, Poland's leading fantasy literary magazine, in 1986 and was enormously successful both with readers and critics. Sapkowski has created a series of tales based on the world of "The Witcher", comprising three collections of short stories and five novels. This cycle and his many other works have made him one of the best-known fantasy authors in Poland in the 1990s.

The main character of the stories is witcher Geralt, a mutant swordsman who has been trained since childhood to hunt down and destroy monsters. Geralt exists in an ambiguous moral universe, yet manages to maintain his own coherent code of ethics. At the same time cynical and noble, Geralt has been compared to Raymond Chandler's signature character Philip Marlowe. The world in which these adventures take place owes much to J.R.R. Tolkien, while being also heavily influenced by Polish history and Slavic mythology.

Sapkowski has won five Zajdel Awards, including three for short stories "Mniejsze zło" (Lesser Evil) (1990), "Sword of Destiny" (1992) and "W leju po bombie" (In a Bomb Crater) (1993), and two for the novels "*Krew elfów*" (*Blood of Elves*) (1994) and "*Narrenturm*" (2002). He also won the Spanish Ignotus Award, best anthology, for *The Last Wish* in 2003, and for "Muzykanci" (The Musicians), best foreign short story, same year.

In 1997, Sapkowski won the prestigious Polityka Passport award, which is awarded annually to artists who have strong prospects for international success.

In 2001, a television series based on the Witcher series was released in Poland and internationally, entitled *The Hexer* (*Wiedźmin*). A film by the same title was compiled from excerpts of the television series but both have been critical and box office failures.

Sapkowski's books have been translated into Czech, Finnish, Estonian, Russian, Lithuanian, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese. English translation of *The Last Wish* short story collection was published in the UK by Gollancz in 2007 and in the US by Orbit in 2008.

Polish game publisher CD Projekt released a PC game based on *The Witcher* universe in October 2007. Called *The Witcher*, it was very well received and a commercial success. On May 17, 2011 the second game - *The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings* was released. In May 2015, the third and final installment of the video game saga - *The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt* - was released.

## Biography

Andrzej Sapkowski is a graduate of the University of Lodz, where he studied foreign trade. Subsequently, he worked in that field. Only later did his literary career begin, as a translator, translating the English story "The Words of the Guru" by Cyril M. Kornbluth for *Fantastyka* magazine. His first work of fiction and literary debut was the short story "The Witcher".

## Bibliography

### The Witcher series

#### Short story collections

* *Wiedźmin* (*Wiedźmin*) (1990)
* *The Last Wish* (*Ostatnie życzenie*) (1993, English edition: 2007)
* *Sword of Destiny* (*Miecz przeznaczenia*) (1992, English edition: 2015) — while the book was first to be published, it collects later short stories and takes place later than *The Last Wish*
* *Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna* (*Something ends, Something begins*) (2000)
* *Maladie i inne opowiadania* (*Malady and Other Stories*) (2012)

#### The Witcher Saga

* *Blood of Elves* (*Krew elfów*) (1994, English edition: 2008)
* *Time of Contempt* (*Czas pogardy*) (1995, English edition: June 2013)
* *Baptism of Fire* (*Chrzest ognia*) (1996, English edition: March 2014)
* *The Tower of the Swallow* (*Wieża Jaskółki*) (1997, English edition: 2016)
* *The Lady of the Lake* (*Pani Jeziora*) (1999, English edition: 2017)

#### Standalone novels

* *Season of Storms* (*Sezon burz*) (2013, English edition: 2018)

### Narrenturm trilogy (or Hussite Trilogy)

This trilogy is set to finally be translated to English.

* *The Tower of Fools* (*Narrenturm*) (2002, English translation expected in October 2020)
* *Warriors of God* (*Boży bojownicy*) (2004)
* *Ceaseless Light* (*Lux perpetua*) (2006)

### Other works

* *The Eye of Yrrhedes* (*Oko Yrrhedesa*) (1995), roleplaying game
* *The World of King Arthur. The Malady* (*Świat króla Artura. Maladie.*) (1995), essay and a short story set in Arthurian mythology
* *Manuscript Discovered in a Dragon's Cave* (*Rękopis znaleziony w Smoczej Jaskini*) (2001), fantasy encyclopedic compendium
* *Viper* (*Żmija*) 2009 a historical fantasy novel set in Soviet occupied Afghanistan

## Interviews

* Eurogamer, 2017, by Robert Purchese
* Eurocon 2016, Sala Teatre