Born: 21 June 1948, Łódź, Poland)
Early days. His father studied law at the Wilno Unuversty. (Wilno is presently Vilnius, Lithuania). His parents met in Wilno, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) before moving to Poland. Sapkowski studied economics, and before turning to writing, he had worked as a senior sales representative for a foreign trade company.
Career. He started his literary career as a translator, in particular, of science fiction. He says he wrote his first short story, "The Witcher" ("Wiedźmin",also translated "The Hexer" or "Spellmaker") on a whim, in order to enter a contest by Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine Fantastyka. Being an expert in marketing[ he knew how to sell, and indeed, he won the 3rd 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 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 Witcher" is Geralt, a mutant hunter who has been trained since childhood to hunt down and destroy monsters.. 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 2001, a television series based on the Witcher cycle was released in Poland and internationally, entitled Wiedźmin (The Hexer). 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, Hungarian, Russian, Lithuanian, German, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Finnish, Slovak, Bulgarian, Serbian, English, Italian, Dutch, Estonian and Swedish. An English translation of The Last Wish short story collection was published by Gollancz in 2007.[ From 2008, the Witcher saga is published by Gollancz. The Polish game developer, CD Projekt RED, created a role-playing game series based on The Witcher universe.
Awards. 1990: Zajdel award for a short story “Lesser evil”(Poland);1992: Zajdel award for a short story “Sword of Destiny”(Poland); 1993: Zajdel award for a short story "In a Bomb Crater" (Poland); 1994: Zajdel award for a novel "Blood of Elves" (Poland); 1996: European Science Fiction Society award; 1997: Polityka's Passport award (Poland);2002: Zajdel award for a novel "Narrenturm" (Poland); 2009: The David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy (England), 2003: Ignotus Award, for The Last Wish , and for The Musicians (Spain);.2010: European Science Fiction Society award ; several Russian awards; 2012: the Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.
This article uses mostly material from the Wikipedia article "Andrzej Sapkowski".
Wikipedia (also includes extensive list of his works)
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Other sources:
Andrzej Sapkowski official site
Published on 10/25/15
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