Andrzej Sapkowski

Andrzej Sapkowski is a Polish fantasy author best known for creating the Witcher universe — the world of Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter for hire navigating a morally ambiguous continent. Sapkowski began publishing Witcher short stories in Polish magazine Fantastyka in the 1980s, collected them in The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, and then wrote a five-novel saga beginning with Blood of Elves. The Witcher universe became the basis for a celebrated video game series by CD Projekt Red and a Netflix adaptation.

Andrzej Sapkowski published his first Witcher short story in 1986, and the character of Geralt of Rivia — a witcher, a professional monster hunter whose mutations grant him enhanced reflexes, resistance to toxins, and a social status somewhere between mercenary and outcast — became one of fantasy literature’s most distinctive creations.

What distinguished the Witcher stories from the beginning was their relationship to European folklore. Rather than inventing monsters wholesale, Sapkowski drew on Slavic mythology, Polish folklore, and fairy tale traditions, often using Geralt’s encounters with creatures as lenses through which to examine questions of prejudice, moral compromise, and the difficulty of remaining neutral in a world that demands you choose sides. The stories are frequently dark, often funny in a sardonic way, and consistently more interested in the grey spaces between good and evil than in simple heroics.

The short story collections — The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny — introduce Geralt, the sorceress Yennefer, the bard Dandelion (Jaskier in Polish), and most critically the girl Ciri, whose destiny becomes the central concern of the five-novel saga that follows. The novels — beginning with Blood of Elves — follow the consequences of that connection across a continent at war.

The video game series by CD Projekt Red (2007–2015) dramatically expanded the global readership, and the Netflix adaptation beginning in 2019 brought further attention. Readers new to the books are best advised to start with The Last Wish.