Andrzej Sapkowski was born in Łódź, Poland on June 21st, 1948. He started out as an economist and worked in foreign trade from 1972 to 1994.
His first published work was his short story Wiedźmin (The Hexer) most commonly known in the United States as The Witcher.
With a writing style often compared to that of J. R. R. Tolkien, Sapkowski's immersive literary world springs to life with a host of legendary characters in this sweeping fantasy adventure saga.
The epic world of The Witcher is full of imaginative folklore beasts, alluring sorceresses, mutated monster hunters and depraved villains.
Sapkowski submitted the story for a writing contest held by Fantastyka, a Polish monthly speculative fiction magazine in 1986, winning third prize. Today it has been translated into twenty different languages.
The Witcher soon became an international sensation, from short story collections, five novels, comic books and several video games to a recently announced Netflix show.
Most Americans are familiar with The Witcher because of the games developed by CD Projekt Red. Although the Witcher video games have enjoyed great success around the world, Andrzej Sapkowski has had a difficult time understanding why.
He has been known to say in interviews that he is not a gamer, and doesn't really like gaming in general. He has also demanded more than 16 Million dollars in royalties from CD Projekt Red, as they only purchased the rights for the first game of their three part series in 2007.
Andrzej Sapkowski went on to win several prestigious literary awards including five Zajdel awards, a high honor bestowed by Poland's avid science fiction and fantasy fandom at the annual Polcon convention.
Some of his other notable works include the Hussite Trilogy, an erudite historical fantasy series set in the 14th century during the Hussite Wars.
Describing his new trilogy in his own words, he says: "the Hussite trilogy is my tour de force. I consider it to be my best work to date. I can’t wait for readers to meet my new hero, Reinmar of Bielau, aka Reynevan, whose adventures take him through a land torn by religious wars."
These books are a unique blend of historical events and characters with accompanying magical elements such as enchanted artifacts and non-human characters.
Unfortunately, those of us in America will have to wait until 2020 for the English translation to hit the shelves.
For the lucky international readers that have had a chance to sink their teeth into it, reviews have been positive with many saying it is on par with his Witcher books or even better.
Although the main story arc of the Witcher series is finished, Sapkowski has said that he intends to continue writing stories set in the Witcher universe.
His last book of the series called Season of Storms (2013) was interesting because it was set between the short stories in the first book in the series, The Last Wish.
For those that want to know where to begin with the Witcher books, I highly recommend the unabridged audio version of The Last Wish, narrated by Peter Kenny and published by Hatchette Audio in 2008.
If you start now, you just might be able to finish the series before the anticipated Netflix show finally drops later this year.
I do not own most of the images shown in this blog post, all rights are reserved by their respective owners.
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