Andrzej Sapkowski

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Andrzej Sapkowski (2015)

Andrzej Sapkowski (born June 21, 1948 in Łódź , Poland ) is a Polish writer . His books take up - mostly parody - motifs from Slavic legends , fairy tales and mythologies . He gained international fame mainly through his fantasy novels about the witcher Geralt , who has become the protagonist in several computer games, films, TV series and comics.

Life

Sapkowski studied economics at the University of Łódź and worked as an economist and management consultant before he first attracted attention with translations; he started with a text by Cyril M. Kornbluth . For his own short stories and novels, published from 1986 onwards, he was awarded the Janusz A. Zajdel Prize five times and the Paszport Polityki ; so far translations are available in fifteen languages. In 2008 he was made an honorary citizen of his hometown for his commitment to the application of Łódź for the title of European Capital of Culture . In 2016 he received the World Fantasy Award for his life's work.

Geralt the witcher

Geralt von Rivia was trained to be one of them since his early childhood at Kaer Morhen Castle, the seat of the wizards of the Wolf School. It is said among the population that the Brotherhood of Sorcerers rob children at night and subject them to harsh and cruel training. During the so-called herbal test, the bone and muscle structure, the genetic code and the metabolic balance mutate during training. Only three out of ten boys, including Geralt, survive this procedure and are then immune to diseases and little susceptible to poisons, magic and severe climatic changes. As side effects, infertility and special identifying signs occur with witchers: pigment disorders on the skin and / or hair as well as the cat's eyes, vertical pupils that allow the witchers to see in complete darkness.

Geralt was taught the basics of magic and sword fighting at Kaer Morhen. As a loner, he is a masterful swordsman with quick, superhuman reflexes, alchemy knowledge and masters so-called witcher symbols , simple spells, which, however, do not even approach the abilities of even moderately gifted sorcerers and thus serve a supporting purpose. In addition to a steel blade, many sorcerers also carry silver swords with them, as some creatures are particularly susceptible to it. Armed in this way, he wanders through the country as a professional monster hunter for a fee, in which he is also known as the White Wolf because of his long, white hair .

Volumes of short stories

Geralt travels through a fantasy world (which in some places is interspersed with fairy tale motifs from the works of the Brothers Grimm and the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen ) to kill monsters and mythical creatures for a fee. The volumes are laid out as an episode novel; Geralt's individual commissions are only loosely linked to one another. The continuous motif is Geralt's fatal love for the sorceress Yennefer. Sapkowski's imagery is in some parts reminiscent of spaghetti westerns , action scenes and subtle dialogues dominate.

  • Ostatnie życzenie (1993, seven short stories - German : The Last Wish , 1998, new edition 2007)
  • Miecz przeznaczenia (1992, six short stories - German: The Sword of Providence , 1998, new edition 2008)

An earlier volume, Wiedźmin ( “The Witcher” ) from 1990, was not translated directly into German. However, four of the five short stories published there are - supplemented by a framework plot - contained in Ostatnie życzenie ( German The Last Wish ), which now forms the beginning of the plot. The fifth story was included in the short story collection Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna ( German something ends, something begins ).

The saga

After the success of the short stories, Sapkowski wrote a series of novels about the witcher Geralt. The German translations of all Geralt stories are from Erik Simon :

  • Krew Elfów (1994 - German : The Legacy of the Elves , 2008)
  • Czas pogardy (1995 - German: The time of contempt , 2009)
  • Chrzest ognia (1996 - German: Baptism of Fire , 2009)
  • Wieża Jaskółki (1997 - German: The Swallow Tower , 2010)
  • Pani jeziora (1999 - German: Die Dame vom See , 2011)

In 2013, a new witcher novel, Sezon burz (German: Time of the Storm , 2015) was published in Polish , the plot of which can be located between the stories from the Sword of Providence and The Last Wish and the actual Geralt saga.

Film adaptations and games

Some stories about the witcher Geralt were implemented in 2001 by the director Marek Brodzki under the title Wiedźmin ( German Geralt von Riva - The Witcher ) first as a feature film and later as a mini-series in 13 parts of 45-50 minutes for Polish television. The German DVD release of the movie took place on May 3, 2010. In 2014 it was announced that a new feature film based on the books about Geralt, also called Wiedźmin , would be shot. The director should be Tomasz Bagiński . On May 17, 2017, Netflix announced a film adaptation of the novels as an English-language series in collaboration with Bagiński.

Andrzej Sapkowski (2010)

In addition, the Polish pen & paper role-playing game Wiedźmin: Gra Wyobraźni was created in 2001 by MAG Verlag, based on the Geralt cycle. In the mid-1990s, Sapkowski licensed his book series to the Polish computer game developer Metropolis Software House , who planned an action adventure, but never completed it. Instead, the Polish studio CD Projekt RED released the computer role-playing game The Witcher in 2007 , which was continued with The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings in 2011 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 2015 .

Sapkowski himself shows no interest in the implementation of his works in computer games. He left content-related queries from the developer Metropolis unanswered. When asked about his opinion on the CD Projekt games, he stated that he had never played a computer game because they were outside his field of interest. He only resorted to public reports and was not involved in the development. Although he shows respect and appreciation to the creators of computer games for their work, only the books and his own ideas are decisive for him. Everything else is merely adaptations that use motifs created by him, but in no way represent alternative versions or continuations of his books: “ If we level the field between books and their adaptations in other media, only the former can be the ones telling a story. There can never be a different relation between a book and its adaptation, other than the one that without the book the adaptation would not exist at all. ”(German:“ If we create the same conditions between books and their adaptations in other media, then only the former are able to tell a story. There can be no other relationship between a book and its adaptations than that an adaptation would not exist at all without the book. "). He refused to provide a canonical context across media or to write accompanying works to an adaptation in another medium. Although he admitted that the games had helped build his books' popularity, he attributed the success of the Witcher series from CD Projekt mainly to the success of his books and his popularity as a writer. He also disagreed with some publishers using artwork from the game to cover their books.

Witcher Adventure Game , a board game from CD Projekt RED and Fantasy Flight Games , has been around since 2014 . CD Projekt RED has announced a pen & paper role-playing game for 2016.

The Tower of Fools Trilogy

This three-part cycle is set in Silesia and Bohemia in the 15th century. It describes the wandering of the medicus Reinmar von Bielau, who wanders through Silesia on the flight from the Inquisition and the horned husband of his lover. In this series, Sapkowski primarily mixes fantasy motifs with the bloody history of the Hussite Wars . In addition, other events of the early 14th century in Eastern Europe are alluded to and historical figures appear, such as the knight Zawisza Czarny . The first volume, Narrenturm, was a bestseller in Poland and sold well in Germany (in a translation by Barbara Samborska ).

Works

Witcher Geralt cycle

Short stories

  • Wiedźmin , 1990.
  • The Sword of Providence , dtv , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-21069-0 , Miecz przeznaczenia , 1992.
  • The last wish , dtv, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-20993-9 , Ostatnie życzenie , 1993.
  • Something ends, something begins . dtv, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-423-21353-0 , Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna , 2000 (Is a collection of eight stories, some of them older. Two of these stories are related to the Hexer-Geralt cycle: Droga, z której się nie wraca ( German  The way from which nobody returns ) takes place many years before the further action and tells of Geralt's parents, the short story Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna ( German Something ends, something begins ) reports differently from the storyline of the witchers -Geralt saga about the wedding of Geralt and Yennefer.)

The saga

Single novel

The tower of fools

Others

  • Świat króla Artura. Maladie (SuperNOVA, 1995) - essay on The World of King Arthur + story Maladie set in the Arthurian world
  • Rękopis znaleziony w smoczej jaskini (SuperNOVA, 2001) - Compendium on fantasy literature (German manuscript found in a dragon's cave )
  • Historia i fantastyka (with Stanisław Bereś, SuperNOVA, 2005) - Interview (German history and fantasy )
  • Żmija (SuperNOVA, 2009) - historical-fantastic novel (Eng. Viper ) set during the Afghanistan war (1979–1989 )

literature

Web links

Commons : Andrzej Sapkowski  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wiedźmin od Bagińskiego. Gry Online, August 22, 2014, accessed August 3, 2015 (Polish).
  2. ↑ The witcher saga coming to Netflix. Retrieved May 18, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b The Witcher game that never was
  4. ↑ Ever wondered what the author of The Witcher books thinks about the games?
  5. ^ Witcher Adventure Game on Amazon.de, accessed December 2, 2015
  6. ↑ CD PROJEKT RED and R.TALSORIAN GAMES Announce The Witcher Role-Playing Game , News on thewitcher.com, accessed on December 3, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Sapkowski, Andrzej
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Łódź , Poland