J. K. Rowling
Joanne Rowling, best known as J. K. Rowling, is an English writer who became internationally famous by the “Harry Potter” saga.
The author was born in 1965 in Yate, England. Coming from a middle-class family, Rowling has revealed an interest in writing from an early age, and she started to write some short stories during his childhood, which she read to her younger sister Dianne. J. K. Rowling finished his high school studies and afterwards went to the University of Exeter, where she graduated in French and Classical Languages in 1986. After finishing her studies, she moved to London and started working at the Amnesty International; a few years later, in 1990, Joanne moves to Portugal, more precisely to O’Porto, where she taught English in Encounter English. Her first daughter, Jessica, was born in Portugal, but three years later, with the end of Rowling’s marriage, they returned to the United Kingdom, this time to Scotland, where Rowling started a training for teachers at the University of Edinburgh, while working as a secretary at the same time.
During this period in her life, J. K. Rowling never stopped writing, and she started the first draft of Harry Potter in 1990, while still in England. However, it was only in 1995 when the writer started attempting to publish the first book of the series; after being rejected by several publishers, Bloomsburry accepted to publish “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. This book, as well as all the others in the series, tells the story of a young wizard named Harry Potter, and his adventures in the wizarding world.
The book was an immediate success, which granted Rowling the publication of the following volumes. By the year 2000, with the first three books already published and translated into 35 languages, and having sold more than 35 million copies in the entire world, J. K. Rowling’s international success was confirmed and growing day by day. In the same year, Warner Bros. made an offer to buy the rights of her work to adapt them to the big screen, which Rowling accepted, with the condition of being a consultant for all the movies produced. Like the books, all the movies were a huge hit, and became blockbusters in most of the countries they premiered.
On a personal level, the beginning of the new millennium also brought major alterations to J. K. Rowling’s life: in 2001, she married Neil Michael Murray, with whom she had 2 children, David and Mackenzie.
Besides the seven volumes of the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling also wrote three small books that are related to the magic world of the books, namely “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, which later was also used as a base for the creation of a new and successful movie series, as well as “Quidditch Through The Ages” and “The Tales of Beedle the Bard”. In 2016, Rowling published “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, the script of a theatre play that follows the adventures of the wizard Harry through adulthood.
Five years after the publication of the last book of the “Harry Potter” series, in 2012, J. K. Rowling published is first book in the drama and police genre, titled “The Casual Vacancy”, followed by “The Cuckoo’s Calling” (2013), “The Silkworm” (2014) and “Career of Evil” (2015), which all together make part of the “Cormoran Strike” series, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The “Cormoran Strike” series was adapted to television in the form of a crime drama series named “Strike”.
The success of the “Harry Potter” series and its adaptation to the big screen not only made J. K. Rowling world renowned and seen as one of the most important British authors of all time, but also made her one of the most wealthy women in the United Kingdom; the writer is very dedicated to humanitarian causes, and makes frequent donations of her fortune.
