Andrzej Sapkowski

Andrzej Sapkowski (born 21 June 1948) is a Polish fantasy writer, essayist, translator and a trained economist.

He is best known for his six-volume series of books The Witcher, which revolves around the eponymous "witcher," a monster-hunter, Geralt of Rivia.

He was born on 21 June 1948 in Łódź, in central Poland.

His father served in the Polish People's Army and participated in the Battle of Berlin.

After the end of World War II, his parents lived near Nowa Sól before settling in Łódź.

He attended the Bolesław Prus High School No. 21.

He also studied economics at the University of Łódź, and before turning to writing, he had worked as a senior sales representative for a foreign trade company.

He started his literary career as a translator, in particular, of science fiction.

Among the first works translated by him was The Words of Guru by Cyril M. Kornbluth.

He turned to writing, first as a translator and later as an author of fantasy books, following the success of his first short story The Witcher published in 1986 in the Fantastyka magazine.

Described as the "Polish Tolkien", he wrote ten novels and eight short story collections, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

The influence of Slavic mythology is seen as a characteristic feature of many of his works.

He is a five-time recipient of the Zajdel Award, Poland's most popular science fiction and fantasy prize, as well as many other awards and honors including David Gemmell Award, World Fantasy Life Achievement Award and the Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.

He says he wrote his first short story, The Witcher (1986), ("Wiedźmin", also translated "The Hexer" or "Spellmaker"), on a whim, in order to enter a contest by Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine Fantastyka.

In an interview, he said that being a businessman at the time and thus familiar with marketing, he knew how to sell, and indeed, he won third prize.

The story was published in Fantastyka in 1986 and was enormously successful both with readers and critics.

Sapkowski has created a cycle of tales based on the world of "The Witcher", comprising three collections of short stories and eight novels.

This cycle and his other works have made him one of the best-known fantasy authors in Poland in the 1990s.

The main character of "The Witcher" is Geralt of Rivia, trained as a monster hunter since childhood.

Geralt exists in a morally ambiguous 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 is heavily influenced by Slavic mythology.

In her review of Blood of Elves, Alice Wybrew of Total Sci-Fi writes that "Moving effortlessly between moments of wrought emotion and staggeringly effective action, to lengthy periods of political discussion and war stratagems, Sapkowski addresses every aspect of a good fantasy novel eloquently and with ease. His style reads as easily as David Gemmel, but hits harder and deeper than his late fantasy comrade. Creating a world that is both familiar and comfortable, it is through his inventive use of character manipulation that he generates a new and realistic experience".

Alex Jay of Polygon further observes that within Sapkowski's fantasy tales, "there are parallels to the complicated history of ethnic strife and resistance to oppression in Central and Eastern Europe".

The depictions of the disputes between nonhumans and humans "echo real-world disputes over territory and citizenship that draw dividing lines according to race, nationality, or ethnicity".

It began with the publication of Sword of Destiny (1992), and was completed with the publication of standalone prequel novel Season of Storms (2013).

The saga has been popularized through television, stage, comic books, video games and translated into 37 languages making him the second most-translated Polish science fiction and fantasy writer after Stanisław Lem.

He was born in Łódź and initially pursued a career as an economist after graduating from the University of Łódź.

In 2001, he published the Manuscript Discovered in a Dragon's Cave, an original and personal guide to fantasy literature.

It was written in the form of an encyclopaedia and the author discusses in it the history of the literary genre, well-known fantasy heroes, descriptions of magic terminology as well as major works of notable writers including J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Robert E. Howard's Conan, C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, and George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

Published between 2002 and 2006, the series was released as an audiobook in 2019.

In August 2023, Sapkowski announced he was working on a new novel from The Witcher universe during an on-line meeting with his Ukrainian fans.

He added that his work on the book "may take a year, but no longer" giving it a potential expected publication date at some point in 2024.

Sapkowski's next book series was The Hussite Trilogy set in the 15th century at the time of the Hussite Wars with Reinmar of Bielawa as the main protagonist.

Mariusz Czubaj writes:

"Sapkowski's trilogy is a form of polemics with the Polish tradition of the historical novel, with let's say Kraszewski and Sienkiewicz, who wrote about cruel times while depriving them of that dose of atrocities and a most basic human dimension. Yet the author of The Witcher does not hide that his characters are not exactly subtle, but who nonetheless bask with delight in what the literature theoretician Mikhail Bakhtin once called 'the material bodily lower stratum'."

Although The Hussite Trilogy proved less popular compared to The Witcher, it has been described as the author's "magnum opus".

In October 2018, he filed a lawsuit against CD Projekt demanding 60 million zloty ($16.1 million) in royalty payments from the company for using the Witcher universe in their computer games.

The lawsuit was launched despite the fact that Sapkowski had sold the video game rights to the Witcher for a single sum, rather than through a royalties contract.

Sapkowski and his lawyers based their lawsuit on Article 44 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act.