#polish fantasy

[cha-mij]

Obviously a lot of the monsters found in the world of the Witcher are based on Slavic folk tales/mythology.

But also Elder Speech/Hen Llinge is heavily based on Welsh and Irish.

I'm trying to figure out if the Grrnichora/Gvaern Ichaer is based on any pre-existing myth, or was it devised by CDPR for Throne breaker?

Anyone know?

[iambecomeafangirl]

I'm reading a young adult fantasy/romantasy book, written by a Polish author (in Polish) - Mags Green "Słoneczny Gon" - and the only thing I can think of now, halfway in the story, is that If she was an American or British author, she would already have hundreds of thousand of fans. Her book would most likely be signed with "New York times bestseller".

She just hits so right with the current book market targeted at young women (Sarah J Maas, Leigh Bardugo, Rebecca Yarros, Holly Black). The only thing stopping her, is the fact that she doesn't write in English. I honestly hope that this book gets translated, and her publishing house won't sleep on it.

[mask131]

Fantasy throughout the world

On top of having an article centered around the French fantasy specifically, the "Modern Success" issue of the BNF Fantasy series also has an article (again written by Anne Besson) covering the topic of "Fantasy throughout the world". Here is, once again, a rough translation by your humble servant:

While heavily dominated by an English-speaking production, fantasy literature found its place in numerous European countries, and managed to cross several continents.

Born in England, grown in parallel on the two sides of the Atlantic oceans, and becoming a mass-phenomenon in the United-States, fantasy is without a doubt an anglophone genre. Even today the fantasy market has a MASSIVE unbalance, and the modern fantasy successes prove that the mondialization of the imaginations is dominated by the cultural superpower of the USA. But ever since the 1970s, as the translations of Tolkien spread across the world and role-playing games conquered the heart of teenagers, "native fantasies" started to appear in various European languages.

German fantasy is a good example of one of those "local takes" - it does help that Germany has a literary background including the Romantic movement, and the brothers Grimm fairytales. After the enormous success of Michael Ende's Never-Ending Story in 1979, the German fantasy did not stop. Many successful authors appeared. Wolfgang Hohlbein gained an internal fame, with his 1982 Märchenmond or his 1999's Chronicles of the Immortals. Cornelia Funke was a famous German youth author, with her trilogy "Inkworld" in 2003. Kai Meyer reworked Germanic legends in his 1998's Loreley or his 2001's Nibelungengold. Walter Moers created the continent of Zamonia, and popularized the character of Captain Blue-Bear (hero of a 1993's children television show, of two novels, and of a 1999's movie).

But very often, international fame only latches on one specific author that is well-known outside of their country's frontiers. In Poland, this author would be Andrzej Sapkowski with his 1986's Witcher series, adapted in 2007 as a video game, and in 2019 as a television series). In Spain, it would be Javier Negrete with his 2003's Tramorea.

Crossing the continents, it becomes very tempting to mix together the magic of fantasy literature with specifically cultural supernatural domains - the Hindu pantheon, the Chinese ghost stories, the kami and the yokai of Japan, the witchcraft of Africa or the Caribbean Isles...

South-America is rich of a literary tradition that in France we compare to our own "fantastique": the short stories of Argentina's authors Jose Luis Borges or Adolfo Bioy Casares in the 40s, the magical realism of Alejo Carpentier in Cuba (The Century of Lights, 1962), of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Columbia (A Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967) or Carlos Fuenta in Mexico (Terra Nostra, 1975).

On the side of the African continent, The Road of Hunger, in 1991, by Nigerian author Ben Okri, is also part of this more "legitimate" current, a form of fantasy much closer to "general literature", but there is a new African generation, dominated by English-speaking women (Nnedi Okorakor, Nisi Shaw, Lauren Beukes) that fully appropriate and absorb the fantasy genre.

Up until a very recent date, it was considered more respectful to not assimilate these works, born of very different cultures, with a genre that is both modern and Anglo-Saxon. However, the numeric world and the mondialized economy have today destroyed a lot of cultural frontiers, and today we assist to a true "meeting of the imaginations" mixing various cultures together. The author of this article mentions as an example several works coming from East-Asia: the Japanese manga Full Metal Alchemist by Arakawa Hirowu, the other Japanese manga Witch Hat Atelier, or the Sino-American movie The Great Wall (2016).

[nosnexus]

Is this Justice? Is this a new dawn?

[macabresymphonies]

Never letting polish nerds recommend me fantasy books, holy shit is the one I’m currently reading bad.

[maratycznie]

[ashipiko]

LOVE IS STORED IN THE. WAFFLES? I THINK.

[sharpenededges]

Krzysztof Powałka - Wara - (2023)

[isvoc]

Hello to annual spooky creature feature! This year it's a chicken from hell! The Cockatrice! I felt like playing around with a bit more local folklore for this bundle. Greetings from wonderful, autumnal slavic forests. 🫀 Print and sticker are available in October on my patreon.

[iambecomeafangirl]

I love Maximus Opoka. The first thing this bitch does after waking up on the train is lying to an old woman, coming up with an entire made up story about his non-existing love interest, just to hide the real reason, why he is on his way to a shithole, and then wishing it was real. Lmao.

Also why is my boy always beat up in the beginnings of the books?

[tifart]

Day 1: Lost

Happy Sephiroth Week!

Work is killing me so I probably won't be able to finish anything else, but I'll see what I can do <3

[genesis-rhapsodass]

Just a found family on their way to a gentler life (hopefully)

So there's this really good fanfic by @eaymtb of Cloud being sent back in time together with child remnants that's got me SO hooked, I've been wanting to draw something for it for ages so here's some art of the boys on their way to Wutai

[grzybjek]

A collage I made for one of the characters from my newest story. His name is Kundel by the way hes an absolute manfail and a menace

[m-kyunie]

HELLO ZAKKURA NATION HOW ARE WE 🫵⚔️🫶🏼

[n3kro-mancja]

💫💫💫

[emerald--crow]

Your words can plant gardens or burn whole forests down.

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.uʍop sʇsǝɹoɟ ǝๅoɥʍ uɹnq ɹo suǝpɹɐɓ ʇuɐๅd uɐɔ spɹoʍ ɹno⅄