Andrzej Sapkowski, born June 21, 1948 in Lodz, is a Polish fantasy writer. Sapkowski studied economics and worked as a businessman before becoming well known as a writer. His first short story, Wiedźmin (The Warlock), was published in Fantastyka, Poland's leading fantasy literary magazine, in 1986 and garnered enormous critical success. Sapkowski has created a cycle of tales based on the world of The Warlock, comprising three collections of short stories and five novels. This cycle and his many other books have made him one of the most well-known sci-fi authors in Poland 1990s.

The main character of The Warlock is Geralt, a mutant assassin who has been trained from childhood to hunt down and destroy monsters and other vermin. Geralt moves in an ambiguous moral universe, yet manages to maintain his own coherent code of ethics. At once 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 also heavily influenced by Polish history and Slavic mythology.

Sapkowski has won five Zajdel Awards, including three for the short stories "Mniejsze zło" (1990), "Miecz przeznaczenia" (1992) and "W leju po bombie" (1993), and two for the novels "Krew elfów" (1994) and "Narrenturm" (2002).

In 1997, Sapkowski won the prestigious Politika Passport award, which the Polish newsweekly Politika grants to Polish artists that have strong prospects for international success.

In 2001, a film and TV series based on the Warlock cycle was released in Poland and internationally, titled Wiedźmin (The Hexer), but both have been critical and box office failures.

Sapkowski's books have been translated into Czech, Russian, Lithuanian, German, Spanish, French and Slovakian.

Bibliography

Short story collections

• Wiedźmin (The Warlock) (1990)
• Miecz przeznaczenia (Sword of Destiny) (1992)
• Ostatnie życzenie (Last Wish) (1993)
• Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna (Something ends, something begins) (2000)

Novels

Hexer saga

• Krew elfów (Blood of the Elves) (1994)
• Czas pogardy (Season of Contempt) (1995)
• Chrzest ognia (Baptism by Fire) (1996)
• Wieża Jaskółki (The Swallow's Tower) (1997)
• Pani Jeziora (Mistress of the Lake) (1999)

Narrenturm trilogy

• Narrenturm (2002)
• Boży bojownicy (Warriors of God) (2004)
• Lux perpetua (not yet released)

Other works

• Oko Yrrhedesa (The Eye of Yrrhedes) (1995), gra fabularna (roleplaying game)
• Świat króla Artura. Maladie. (The World of King Arthur) (1995)
• Rękopis znaleziony w Smoczej Jaskini (Manuscript Discovered in a Dragon's Cave) (2001)

External links

• Andrzej Sapkowski's official site
• Page for Sapkowski at Internet Movie Database