Andrzej Sapkowski is a renowned Polish fantasy author, born on June 21, 1948, in Łódź. Before becoming a writer, he studied economics and worked in sales for a foreign trade company. Sapkowski's writing career began with the publication of his first short story, "The Witcher" (Wiedźmin), in Fantastyka, Poland's leading fantasy literary magazine, in 1986. This story was the beginning of the Witcher saga, which would establish him as one of the top Polish fantasy novelists of the 1990s.
Sapkowski's work is heavily influenced by Slavic mythology and features Geralt, a mutant assassin trained since childhood to hunt down and destroy monsters. Geralt exists in an ambiguous moral universe yet maintains his own code of ethics, drawing comparisons to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. The Witcher series includes three collections of short stories and five novels, earning Sapkowski five Zajdel Awards and two Spanish Ignotus Awards. In 1997, he received the Polityka's Passport award, recognizing artists with strong international prospects.
The Witcher series has gained significant popularity, leading to a Polish television series and an internationally acclaimed role-playing PC game, The Witcher, developed by CD Projekt. Sapkowski's work has been translated into several languages, with English translations of The Last Wish and Blood of Elves published in 2007 and 2009, respectively. His achievements include the David Gemmell Legend Award for Blood of Elves in 2009. In 2012, Sapkowski was awarded the prestigious Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.