Andrzej Sapkowski, born 21 June 1948 in Łódź, is a Polish fantasy writer. Sapkowski studied economics and, before turning to writing, he worked as a senior sales representative for a foreign trade company. His first short story, "The Witcher" ("Wiedźmin"), was published in Fantastyka, Poland's leading fantasy literary magazine, in 1986 and was enormously successful both with readers and critics. Sapkowski has created a series 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 made him one of the best-known fantasy authors in Poland in the 1990s.