The Last Wish

***The Last Wish*** (Polish: *Ostatnie życzenie*) is the first book in Andrzej Sapkowski's *The Witcher* series in terms of story chronology, although the original Polish edition was published in 1993, after *Sword of Destiny*.

## The Last Wish

### Publication date

7 June 2007 (UK 1st ed.)14 Feb. 2008 (UK 2nd ed.)1 May 2008 (U.S.)

### No.of pages

280 (UK 1st ed.)288 (UK 2nd ed.)384 (U.S.)

### ISBN

978-0-575-07782-9 (UK 1st ed.)978-0-575-08244-1 (UK 2nd ed.)978-0-316-02918-6 (U.S.)

Some of the individual short stories were first published in the *Fantastyka* magazine or in the *Wiedźmin* short story collection (the first collection of Sapkowski's stories, out of print and now obsolete; all short stories were later collected in *The Last Wish*, *Sword of Destiny* and *Something Ends, Something Begins*) and as such were the first witcher stories published.

The first UK edition was released by Gollancz on 7 June 2007 and a second edition was released the next year on 14 February 2008. The US edition was released a few months later, on 1 May 2008 by Orbit.

Audible UK, in conjunction with Orion Books and Gollancz, released *The Last Wish* audio on February 27, 2014, only a few short weeks after it was announced. *The Last Wish* is read by Peter Kenny.

## Stories Included

The anthology employs the story within a story framework and contains seven main short stories.

Geralt, after having been injured in battle, rests in a temple of Melitele in Ellander. During that time he has flashbacks to recent events in his life — each of which forms a story of its own.

* The Voice of Reason (*Głos rozsądku*, framing story)
* The Witcher (*Wiedźmin*)
* A Grain of Truth (*Ziarno prawdy*)
* The Lesser Evil (*Mniejsze zło*)
* A Question of Price (*Kwestia ceny*)
* The Edge of the World (*Kraniec świata*)
* The Last Wish (*Ostatnie życzenie*)

## Translations

* Bulgarian: *Вещерът. Последното желание*, (ИнфоДар, 2008)
* Czech: *Poslední přání*, (Leonardo, 1999)
* Danish: *Witcheren - Det sidste ønske*, (Gyldendal, 2016)
* Dutch: *De laatste wens* , (Dutch Media Uitgevers, 2010)
* German: *Der letzte Wunsch*, (Heyne, 1998)
* English: *The Last Wish*, translated by Danusia Stok (UK – Gollancz, 2007, US – Orbit, 2008)
* Spanish: *El último deseo*, translated by Jose María Faraldo (Bibliópolis fantástica, 2002)
* Finnish: *Viimeinen toivomus*, translated by Tapani Kärkkäinen (WSOY 2010)
* French: *Le Dernier Vœu*, (Bragelonne, 2003)
* Hungarian: *Vaják I. – Az utolsó kívánság*, translated by Szathmáry-Kellermann Viktória (PlayON 2011)
* Italian: *Il Guardiano degli Innocenti*, (Nord, 2010)
* Korean: 위처:이성의 목소리, (제우미디어, 2011)
* Lithuanian: *Paskutinis noras*, (Eridanas-2005, Alma Littera-2017)
* Portuguese: *O Terceiro Desejo, translated by* Tomasz Barcinski (Saída de Emergência, 2016)
* Brazilian Portuguese: *O Último Desejo*, Brazilian version translated by Tomasz Barcinski (WMF Martins Fontes, 2011)
* Romanian: *Ultima dorință*, translated by Mihaela Fiscutean (Nemira, 2019)
* Russian: *Последнее желание*, translated by Евгений Вайсброт (АСТ, 1996)
* Serbian: *Последња жеља/Poslednja želja*, translated by Olivera Duskov and Milan Duskov (IPS 2009)
* Slovak: *Zaklínač I.: Posledné želanie* translated by Karol Chmel (Plus, 2015)
* Swedish: *Den sista önskningen*, (Coltso, 2010)
* Traditional Chinese: 獵魔士 - 最後的願望, translated by 林蔚昀 (蓋亞文化, 2011)
* Simplified Chinese: 猎魔人卷一：白狼崛起, translated by 小龙 (重庆出版社, 2015)
* Ukrainian: *Останнє бажання*, translated by Сергій Легеза (КСД, 2015)
* Turkish: Son Dilek, translated by Regaip Minareci from German (Pegasus, 2017)
* Greek: Η τελευταία ευχή, translated by Δημήτρης Χουλιαράκης (SEΛINI, 2013)
* Hebrew: המכשף המשאלה האחרונה, translated by Ilay Halpern (Yedioth Books, 2021)

## Audio Versions

There are two audio versions of *The Last Wish* available in Polish. Classic audiobook, lasting about 11 hours and read by Roch Siemianowski, was released by superNOWA (Polish publisher of Sapkowski's works) in 1996.

In 2011, after the huge success of audio play based on Sapkowski's *Narrenturm*, Fonopolis and audioteka.pl released audio plays based on *The Last Wish* and *Sword of Destiny*. *The Last Wish*, lasting about 12 hours, was voiced by 52 actors, including Krzysztof Banaszyk (Vernon Roche in *Assassins of Kings*) as Geralt, Anna Dereszowska as Yennefer, Sławimir Pacek (minor characters in video games) as Dandelion and Krzysztof Gosztyła as narrator. Samples from all short stories can be found on audioteka.pl's site.

## Bagiński Film

A movie adaptation announced for 2017 states that it: *"will be based on themes from the short stories 'The Witcher' and 'Lesser Evil' from 'The Last Wish' collection. Tomasz Bagiński, who had been nominated for an Oscar for his film, 'The Cathedral', will be the director."*

## Notes

* In the Polish edition, it is stated that Crach an Craite is a maternal nephew ("siostrzeniec") of King Bran, meaning that king had a sister which married into an Craites, something that is lost in most translations.