The Last Wish

The Last Wish (Polish: Ostatnie życzenie) is the first book in Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher series in terms of story chronology, although the original Polish edition was published in 1993, after Sword of Destiny.

Some of the individual short stories were first published in the Fantastyka magazine or in the Wiedźmin short story collection (the first collection of Sapkowski's stories, out of print and now obsolete; all short stories were later collected in The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny and Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna) and as such were the first witcher stories published.

The first UK edition was released by Gollancz on 7 June 2007 and a second edition was released the next year on 14 February 2008. The US edition was released a few months later, on 1 May 2008 by Orbit.

Audible UK, in conjunction with Orion Books & Gollancz, released The Last Wish audio on February 27, 2014, only a few short weeks after it was announced. The Last Wish is read by Peter Kenny.

Stories included
The anthology employs the story within a story framework and contains seven main short stories.

Geralt, after having been injured in battle, rests in a temple of Melitele in Ellander. During that time he has flashbacks to recent events in his life — each of which forms a story of its own.


 * The Voice of Reason (Głos rozsądku, framing story)
 * The Witcher (Wiedźmin)
 * A Grain of Truth (Ziarno prawdy)
 * The Lesser Evil (Mniejsze zło)
 * A Question of Price (Kwestia ceny)
 * The Edge of the World (Kraniec świata)
 * The Last Wish (Ostatnie życzenie)

Translations

 * Flag bulgaria.png Bulgarian: Вещерът. Последното желание, (ИнфоДар, 2008)
 * Flag czech.png Czech: Poslední přání, (Leonardo, 1999)
 * Flag Denmark.png Danish: Witcheren - Det sidste ønske, (Gyldendal, 2016)
 * Flag netherlands.png Dutch: De laatste wens (2011)
 * Flag germany.png German: Der letzte Wunsch, (Heyne, 1998)
 * Flag uk.png Flag USA.png English: The Last Wish, translated by Danusia Stok (UK – Gollancz, 2007, US – Orbit, 2008)
 * Flag spain.png Spanish: El último deseo, translated by Jose María Faraldo (Bibliópolis fantástica, 2002)
 * Flag finland.png Finnish: Viimeinen toivomus, translated by Tapani Kärkkäinen (WSOY 2010)
 * Flag france.png French: Le Dernier Vœu, (Bragelonne, 2003)
 * Flag hungary.png Hungarian: Vaják I. – Az utolsó kívánság, translated by Szathmáry-Kellermann Viktória (PlayON 2011)
 * Flag italy.png Italian: Il Guardiano degli Innocenti, (Nord, 2010)
 * Flag South Korea.png Korean: 위처:이성의 목소리, (제우미디어, 2011)
 * Flag Lithuania.png Lithuanian: Paskutinis noras, (Eridanas-2005, Alma Littera-2017)
 * Flag netherlands.png Dutch: De Laatste Wens, (Dutch Media Uitgevers, 2010)
 * Flag of Portugal.svg Portuguese: O Terceiro Desejo, translated by Tomasz Barcinski (Saída de Emergência, 2016)
 * Flag Brazil.png Brazilian Portuguese: O Último Desejo, Brazilian version translated by Tomasz Barcinski (WMF Martins Fontes, 2011)
 * Flag russia.png Russian: Последнее желание, translated by Евгений Вайсброт (АСТ, 1996)
 * Flag serbia.png Serbian: Последња жеља/Poslednja želja, translated by Olivera Duskov and Milan Duskov (IPS 2009)
 * Flag slovakia.png Slovak: Zaklínač I.: Posledné želanie translated by Karol Chmel (Plus, 2015)
 * Flag sweden.svg Swedish: Den sista önskningen, (Coltso, 2010)
 * Flag China.png Traditional Chinese: 獵魔士 - 最後的願望, translated by 林蔚昀 (蓋亞文化, 2011)
 * Flag China.png Simplified Chinese: 猎魔人卷一：白狼崛起, translated by 小龙 (重庆出版社, 2015)
 * Flag ukraine.png Ukrainian: Останнє бажання, translated by Сергій Легеза (КСД, 2015)
 * Flag turkey.png Turkish: Son Dilek, translated by Regaib Minareci from German (Pegasus, 2017)

Audio versions
There are two audio versions of The Last Wish available in Polish. Classic audiobook, lasting about 11 hours and read by Roch Siemianowski, was released by superNOWA (Polish publisher of Sapkowski's works) in 1996.

In 2011, after huge success of audio play based on Sapkowski's Narrenturm, Fonopolis and audioteka.pl released audio plays based on The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. The Last Wish, lasting about 12 hours, was voiced by 52 actors, including Krzysztof Banaszyk (Vernon Roche in Assassins of Kings) as Geralt, Anna Dereszowska as Yennefer, Sławimir Pacek (minor characters in video games) as Dandelion and Krzysztof Gosztyła as narrator. Samples from all short stories can be found on audioteka.pl's site.

Bagiński film
A new movie adaptation, announced for 2017 states that it: "will be based on themes from the short stories 'The Witcher' and 'Lesser Evil' from 'The Last Wish' collection. Tomasz Bagiński, who had been nominated for an Oscar for his film, 'The Cathedral', will be the director."