J.k rowling biography for children

J. K. Rowling facts for kids

Quick facts for kids

J. Juvenile. Rowling


CHOBE FRSL

Rowling at glory White House in 2010

BornJoanne Rowling
(1965-07-31) 31 July 1965 (age 59)
Yate, County, England
Pen name
  • J.

    K. Rowling

  • Robert Galbraith
Occupation
Alma mater
PeriodContemporary
Genres
Years active1997–present
Notable awardsCH
OBE
Légion d'honneur
Spouse
  • Jorge Arantes

    (m.

    1992; div. 1995)​

Children3
Signature

Joanne Rowling (iROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen nameJ. K. Rowling, is a Land author and philanthropist.

She bash the author of Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy novel panel published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold focus on 600 million copies, been translated add up to 84 languages, and spawned a extensive media franchise including films take video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first unusual for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime myth series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a supporter and bilingual secretary for Pardon International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for high-mindedness Harry Potter series.

The seven-year period that followed saw high-mindedness death of her mother, rendering birth of her first toddler, divorce from her first keep in reserve, and relative poverty until rank first novel in the convoy, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997. Six sequels followed, concluding disagree with Harry Potter and the Eerie Hallows (2007).

By 2008, Forbes had named her the world's highest-paid author.

The novels follow a-ok boy called Harry Potter variety he attends Hogwarts (a secondary for wizards), and battles Potentate Voldemort. Death and the coverage between good and evil catch unawares the central themes of grandeur series. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), school traditional, fairy tales, and Christian lesson.

The series revived fantasy likewise a genre in the lowranking market, spawned a host notice imitators, and inspired an sleeping like a baby fandom. Critical reception has back number more mixed. Many reviewers have a view over Rowling's writing as conventional; brutally regard her portrayal of coition and social division as bashful.

There were also religious debates over the Harry Potter series.

Rowling has won many accolades answer her work. She has established an OBE and made a-ok Companion of Honour for rite to literature and philanthropy. Harry Potter brought her wealth prep added to recognition, which she has tatty to advance philanthropic endeavours concentrate on political causes.

She established decency Volant Charitable Trust in 2000, and co-founded the charity Lumos in 2005. Rowling's philanthropy centres on medical causes and mien at-risk women and children. Fashionable 2012, Forbes estimated that Rowling's charitable giving totaled US$160 fortune. She has also donated drawback Britain's Labour Party, and anti Scottish independence and Brexit.

By reason of 2017, Rowling has been immediate about her opinions on transgendered people and related civil candid. Her comments, described as transphobic by critics and LGBT state organisations, have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of spiel and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgendered people from the culture sector.

Name

Although she writes under the spout name J.

K. Rowling, heretofore her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling, or Jo. Artificial birth, she had no inside name. Staff at Bloomsbury Making known suggested that she use team a few initials rather than her congested name, anticipating that young boys – their target audience – would not want to expire a book written by great woman.

She chose K importance the second initial, from wise paternal grandmother Kathleen Rowling, submit because of the ease place pronunciation of the two successive letters. Following her 2001 remarriage, she has sometimes used nobleness name Joanne Murray when government personal business.

Life and career

Early strive and family

Rowling's parents met tenderness a train from King's Cross; her portal to the witching world is "Platform 9+3⁄4" at King's Cross.

Joanne Rowling was born mess 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, to a middle-class coat.

Her parents Anne (née Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the previous generation on a train, sharing unadorned trip from King's Cross base, London, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland. Rowling's vernacular was with the Wrens illustrious her father with the Kingly Navy. Pete Rowling was prestige son of a machine-tool compositor who later opened a marketplace shop.

They left the fleet life and sought a nation home to raise the babe in arms they were expecting, and connubial on 14 March 1965 conj at the time that both were 19. The Rowlings settled in Yate, where Pete started work as an assembly-line production worker at the Metropolis Siddeley factory. The company became part of Rolls-Royce, and yes worked his way into control as a chartered engineer.

Anne Rowling later worked as efficient science technician. Neither of Rowling's parents attended university.

Rowling is yoke years older than her care for, Dianne, whose birth was Rowling's earliest memory. When she was four, Rowling's family moved designate Winterbourne, Gloucestershire. She began extra St Michael's Church of England Primary School in Winterbourne just as she was five.

The Rowlings lived near a family hailed Potter – a name Rowling always liked. Rowling's mother be a success to read and the family's homes were filled with books. Her father read The Ozone in the Willows to culminate daughters, while her mother exotic them to the animals ton Richard Scarry's books. Rowling's head attempt at writing, a parcel called "Rabbit" composed when she was six, was inspired gross Scarry's creatures.

When Rowling was tension nine, the family purchased depiction historic Church Cottage in Tutshill.

In 1974, Rowling began audience the nearby Church of England School. Biographer Sean Smith describes her teacher as a "battleaxe" who "struck fear into interpretation hearts of the children"; Rowling's teacher seated her in "dunces' row" after she performed inexpertly on an arithmetic test. Kick up a fuss 1975, Rowling joined a Brownies pack.

Its special events near parties, and the pack assortments (Fairies, Pixies, Sprites, Elves, Gnomes and Imps) provided a extraordinary world away from her impenetrable teacher. When she was cardinal or twelve, she wrote skilful short story, "The Seven Unfortunate Diamonds". She later described in the flesh during this period as "the epitome of a bookish toddler – short and squat, bulky National Health glasses, living clod a world of complete daydreams".

Secondary school and university

Church Cottage, Tutshill, Gloucs, Rowling's childhood home

Rowling's non-essential school was Wyedean School gift College, a state school she began attending at the con of eleven and where she was bullied.

Rowling was dazzling by her favourite teacher, Lucy Shepherd, who taught the help of structure and precision handset writing. Smith writes that Rowling "craved to play heavy go-ahead guitar", and describes her bring in "intelligent yet shy". Her tutor Dale Neuschwander was impressed dampen her imagination.

When she was a young teenager, Rowling's grandaunt gave her Hons and Rebels, the autobiography of the civilian rights activist Jessica Mitford. Writer became Rowling's heroine, and she read all her books.

Anne difficult to understand a strong influence on back up daughter. Early in Rowling's living, the support of her surliness and sister instilled confidence most important enthusiasm for storytelling.

Anne was a creative and accomplished fudge, who helped lead her daughters' Brownie activities, and took a-one job in the chemistry segment at Wyedean while her progeny were there. The three walked to and from school uniform, with a relationship more near sisters than mother and descendants. John Nettleship, the head have available science at Wyedean, described Anne as "absolutely brilliant, a dazzling character ...

very imaginative". Anne was diagnosed with a "virulent strain" of multiple sclerosis when she was 34 or 35 added Jo was 15, and locked away to quit her job. Rowling's home life was complicated uncongenial her mother's illness and regular strained relationship with her clergyman. Rowling later said "home was a difficult place to be", and that her teenage time were unhappy.

In 2020, she wrote that her father would have preferred a son see described herself as having toning obsessive–compulsive disorder in her adolescence. She began to smoke, took an interest in alternative escarpment, and adopted Siouxsie Sioux's back-combed hair and black eyeliner. Sean Harris, her best friend close in the Upper Sixth, owned span turquoise Ford Anglia that not up to scratch an escape from her drizzly home life and the strategic for Harris and Rowling rear broaden their activities.

Living in on the rocks small town with pressures milk home, Rowling became more concerned in her schoolwork.

Steve Charybdis, her first secondary school Truthfully teacher, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of swell group of girls who were bright, and quite good milk English". Rowling took A-levels shut in English, French, and German, consummation two As and a Ill at ease, and was named head young lady at Wyedean. She applied anent Oxford University in 1982 nevertheless was rejected.

Biographers attribute bring about rejection to privilege, as she had attended a state college rather than a private one.

Rowling always wanted to be great writer, but chose to memorize French and the classics split the University of Exeter buy practical reasons, influenced by breather parents who thought job reliance would be better with remains of bilingualism.

She later so-called that Exeter was not originally what she expected ("to excellence among lots of similar followers – thinking radical thoughts") on the other hand that she enjoyed herself subsequently she met more people regard her. She was an criterion student at Exeter, described antisocial biographers as prioritising her common life over her studies, arena lacking ambition and enthusiasm.

Rowling recalls doing little work renounce university, preferring to read Devil and Tolkien. She earned dialect trig BA in French from Exeter, graduating in 1987 after a-one year of study in Paris.

Inspiration and mother's death

After university, Rowling moved to a flat domestic Clapham Junction with friends, humbling took a course to pass on a bilingual secretary.

While she was working temporary jobs restrict London, Amnesty International hired bare to document human rights issues in French-speaking Africa. She began writing adult novels while operation as a temp, although they were never published. In 1990, she planned to move filch her boyfriend to Manchester, famous frequently took long train trips to visit.

In mid-1990, she was on a train slow by four hours from City to London, when the code Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, explode Hermione Granger came plainly jerk her mind. Having no turn down or paper allowed her give somebody no option but to fully explore the characters contemporary their story in her sense before she reached her blanched and began to write.

Rowling la-de-da to Manchester around November 1990.

She described her time ancestry Manchester, where she worked manner the Chamber of Commerce lecture at Manchester University in temporary secretary jobs, as a "year accuse misery". Her mother died counterfeit multiple sclerosis on 30 Dec 1990. At the time, she was writing Harry Potter have a word with had never told her keep somebody from talking about it.

Her mother's cessation heavily affected Rowling's writing. She later said that her storybook creation of the Mirror pointer Erised is about her mother's death, and noted an "evident parallelism" between Harry confronting sovereign own mortality and her life.

The pain of the loss a selection of her mother was compounded during the time that some personal effects her smear had left her were taken.

With the end of honesty relationship with her boyfriend, crucial "being made redundant from hoaxer office job in Manchester", Rowling described herself as being instruct in a state of "fight imperfection flight". An advertisement in The Guardian led her to declare to Porto, Portugal, in Nov 1991 to teach night rule in English as a eccentric language, writing during the day.

Marriage, divorce and single parenthood

Rowling sham to Porto, Portugal, to educate English.

Five months after arriving place in Porto, Rowling met the Lusitanian television journalist Jorge Arantes wrench a bar and found think it over they shared an interest pluck out Jane Austen.

By mid-1992, they were planning a trip work stoppage London to introduce Arantes abolish Rowling's family, when she abstruse a miscarriage. The relationship was troubled, but they married strive 16 October 1992. Their colleen Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford) was inherent on 27 July 1993 confine Portugal. By this time, Rowling had finished the first several chapters of Harry Potter with the addition of the Philosopher's Stone – about as they were eventually accessible – and had drafted probity rest of the novel.

Rowling versed domestic abuse during her alliance.

Arantes said in June 2020 that he had slapped in exchange and did not regret dissuade. Rowling described the marriage introduction "short and catastrophic". She says she was not allowed disregard have a house key tolerate that her husband used influence growing manuscript of her cardinal book as a hostage. Rowling and Arantes separated on 17 November 1993 after Arantes threw her out of the house; she returned with the constabulary to retrieve Jessica and disallow belongings and went into beating for two weeks before she left Portugal.

In late 1993, with a draft of Harry Potter in her suitcase, Rowling moved with her daughter here Edinburgh, Scotland, planning to stop with her sister until Christmas.

Her biographer Sean Smith raises goodness question of why Rowling chose to stay with her develop rather than her father. Rowling has spoken of an antagonization from her father, stating predicament an interview with Oprah Winfrey that "It wasn't a worthy relationship from my point appreciate view for a very well along time but I had a-okay need to please and Berserk kept that going for span long time and then there ...

just came a point predicament which I had to tow up and say I can't do this anymore." Pete difficult married his secretary within twosome years of Anne's death, endure The Scotsman reported in 2003 that "[t]he speed of crown decision to move in ring true his secretary ... distressed both sisters and a fault-line now divided them and their father." Rowling said in 2012 that they had not spoken in ethics last nine years.

Rowling sought administration assistance and got £69 (US$103) per week from Social Security; not wanting to burden recede recently married sister, she attacked to a flat that she described as mouse-ridden.

She ulterior described her economic status similarly being as "poor as scratch out a living is possible to be make real modern Britain, without being homeless". Seven years after graduating plant university, she saw herself though a failure. Tison Pugh writes that the "grinding effects remind poverty, coupled with her incident for providing for her lass as a single parent, caused great hardship".

Her marriage confidential failed, and she was redundant with a dependent child, however she later described this significance "liberating" her to focus set-up writing. She has said divagate "Jessica kept me going". Second old school friend, Sean Diplomatist, lent her £600 ($900), which allowed her to move save for a flat in Leith, pivot she finished Philosopher's Stone.

Arantes dismounted in Scotland in March 1994 seeking both Rowling and Jessica.

On 15 March 1994, Rowling sought an action of proscription (order of restraint); the boycott was granted and Arantes complementary to Portugal. ..... With club months of therapy, her essential health gradually improved. She filed for divorce on 10 Grave 1994; the divorce was finalised on 26 June 1995.

Rowling lacked to finish the book at one time enrolling in a teacher knowledge course, fearing she might put together be able to finish in days gone by she started the course.

She often wrote in cafés, inclusive of Nicolson's, part-owned by her brother-in-law. Secretarial work brought in £15 ($22.50) per week, but she would lose government benefits pretend she earned more. In mid-1995, a friend gave her medium of exchange that allowed her to approach off benefits and enrol full-time in college.

Still needing strapped for cash and expecting to make excellent living by teaching, Rowling began a teacher training course hem in August 1995 at Moray Scaffold School of Education after end her first novel. She justifiable her teaching certificate in July 1996 and began teaching socialize with Leith Academy. Rowling later held that writing the first Harry Potter book had saved churn out life and that her goings-on about "love, loss, separation, death ...

are reflected in the good cheer book".

Publishing Harry Potter

Main article: Harry Potter

Rowling completed Harry Potter unthinkable the Philosopher's Stone in June 1995. The initial draft makebelieve an illustration of Harry invitation a fireplace, showing a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. Mass an enthusiastic report from demolish early reader, Christopher Little Pedantic Agency agreed to represent Rowling.

Her manuscript was submitted outdo twelve publishers, all of which rejected it. Barry Cunningham, who ran the children's literature offshoot at Bloomsbury Publishing, bought proceedings, after Nigel Newton, who prudent Bloomsbury at the time, maxim his eight-year-old daughter finish particular chapter and want to occupy reading.

Rowling recalls Cunningham effectual her, "You'll never make gauche money out of children's books, Jo." Rowling was awarded efficient writer's grant by the Scots Arts Council to support remove childcare costs and finances in advance Philosopher's Stone's publication, and resign yourself to aid in writing the result, Chamber of Secrets.

On 26 June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial hurl run of 5,650 copies. Before Chamber of Secrets was published, Rowling had received £2,800 ($4,200) extort royalties.

Philosopher's Stone introduces Harry Fool. Harry is a wizard who lives with his non-magical next of kin until his eleventh birthday, what because he is invited to turn up at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft pointer Wizardry.

Rowling wrote six sequels, which follow Harry's adventures use Hogwarts with friends Hermione Farmer and Ron Weasley and her highness attempts to defeat Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents in the way that he was a child.

Rowling deed the National Press Club bear hug Washington, D.C. in 1999

Rowling usual the news that the Cause difficulties rights were being auctioned take care of the Bologna Children's Book Righteous.

To her surprise and cheer, Scholastic Corporation bought the be entitled to for $105,000. She bought deft flat in Edinburgh with rectitude money from the sale. Character A. Levine, head of character imprint at Scholastic, pushed sort a name change. He lacked Harry Potter and the Institute of Magic; as a allotment Rowling suggested Harry Potter additional the Sorcerer's Stone.

Sorcerer's Stone was released in the Banded together States in September 1998. Deafening was not widely reviewed, on the contrary the reviews it received were generally positive. Sorcerer's Stone became a New York Times bestseller by December.

The next three books in the series were unconfined in quick succession between 1998 and 2000: Harry Potter esoteric the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and the Disadvantage of Azkaban (1999), and Harry Potter and the Goblet lecture Fire (2000), each selling ton of copies.

When Harry With and the Order of say publicly Phoenix had not appeared unresponsive to 2002, rumours circulated that Rowling was suffering writer's block. Rowling denied these rumours, stating dignity 896-page book took three mature to write because of lying length. It was published up-to-date June 2003, selling millions near copies on the first deal out.

Harry Potter and the Hybrid Prince was released two time eon later in July 2005, improve selling millions of copies disarrange the first day. The serial ended with Harry Potter soar the Deathly Hallows, published unveil July 2007.

Films

Main article: Harry Potter (film series)

In 1999, Warner Bros. purchased film rights to dignity first two Harry Potter novels for a reported $1 million.

Rowling accepted the offer with interpretation provision that the studio solitary produce Harry Potter films home-made on books she authored, make your mind up retaining the right to terminating script approval, and some inspect over merchandising. Harry Potter splendid the Philosopher's Stone, an translation design of the first Harry Potter book, was released in Nov 2001.

Steve Kloves wrote glory screenplays for all but influence fifth film, with Rowling's support, ensuring that his scripts set aside to the plots of honesty novels. The film series ended with Harry Potter and position Deathly Hallows, which was suitable in two parts; part melody was released on 19 Nov 2010, and part two followed on 15 July 2011.

Warner Bros.

announced an expanded relationship best Rowling in 2013, including shipshape and bristol fashion planned series of films go into her character Newt Scamander, non-existent author of Fantastic Beasts pivotal Where to Find Them. Interpretation first film of five, dexterous prequel to the Harry Potter series, set roughly 70 years a while ago, was released in November 2016.

Rowling wrote the screenplay, which was released as a publication. Crimes of Grindelwald was unconfined in November 2018. Secrets elect Dumbledore was released in Apr 2022. In November 2022, Variety reported that Warner Bros. Broadcasting was not actively planning command somebody to continue the film series recall to develop any further pictures related to the Wizarding Universe franchise.

Religion, wealth and remarriage

Further information: Religious debates over the Harry Potter series

By 1998, Rowling was portrayed in the media trade in a "penniless divorcee hitting justness jackpot".

According to her annalist Sean Smith, the publicity became effective marketing for Harry Potter, but her journey from woodland on benefits to wealth spent, along with fame, concerns free yourself of different groups about the books' portrayals of the occult predominant gender roles. Ultimately, Smith says that these concerns served get as far as "enhance [her] public profile to some extent than damage it".

Rowling identifies chimpanzee a Christian.

Although she grew up next door to socialize church, accounts of the family's church attendance differ. She began attending a Church of Scotland congregation, where Jessica was baptized, around the time she was writing Harry Potter. In unadorned 2012 interview, she said she belonged to the Scottish Apostolic Church. Rowling has stated give it some thought she believes in God, however has experienced doubt, and put off her struggles with faith grand gesture a part in her books.

She does not believe amount magic or witchcraft.

Rowling married Neil Murray, a doctor, in 2001. The couple intended to join that July in the Island, but when this leaked stopper the press, they delayed their wedding and changed their opportunity destination to Mauritius. After ethics UK Press Complaints Commission ruled that a magazine had breached Jessica's privacy when the eight-year-old was included in a portrait of the family taken lasting that trip, Murray and Rowling sought a more private champion quiet place to live current work.

Rowling bought Killiechassie Demonstrate and its estate in Perthshire, Scotland, and on 26 Dec 2001, the couple had unadorned small, private wedding there, officiated by an Episcopalian priest who travelled from Edinburgh. Their individual, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born in 2003, and their daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Lexicographer in 2005.

In 2004, Forbes called Rowling "the first billion-dollar author".

Rowling denied that she was a billionaire in a 2005 interview. By 2012, Forbes accomplished she was no longer smashing billionaire due to her magnanimous donations and high UK tariff. She was named the world's highest paid author by Forbes in 2008, 2017 and 2019. Her UK sales total boardwalk excess of £238 million, making composite the best-selling living author delight Britain.

The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's destiny at £820 million, ranking her since the 196th-richest person in excellence UK. As of 2020, she also owns a £4.5 million Caucasian house in Kensington and orderly £2 million home in Edinburgh, locale she lives with Murray careful her two youngest children.

Adult fable and Robert Galbraith

Main articles: The Casual Vacancy, The Casual Vacancy (miniseries), Cormoran Strike, and Strike (TV series)

In mid-2011, Rowling not completed Christopher Little Literary Agency forward followed her agent Neil Statesman to the Blair Partnership.

Sharptasting represented her for the publicizing of The Casual Vacancy, unbound in September 2012 by Round about, Brown and Company. It was Rowling's first since Harry Potter ended, and her first work for adults. A contemporary view on 19th-century British fiction fluke village life, Casual Vacancy was promoted as a black amusement, while the critic Ian Saxophonist described it as a "rural comedy of manners".

It was adapted to a miniseries co-created by the BBC and HBO.

Little, Brown and Company also promulgated The Cuckoo's Calling, the professed début novel of Robert Diplomatist, in April 2013. Telling birth story of detective Cormoran Obstruction, a disabled veteran of high-mindedness War in Afghanistan, it at first sold 1,500 copies in hardback.

Tail an investigation prompted by chitchat on Twitter, the journalist Richard Brooks contacted Rowling's agent, who confirmed Galbraith was Rowling's stage name. Rowling later said she enjoyed working as Robert Galbraith, natty name she took from Parliamentarian F. Kennedy, a personal exemplar, and Ella Galbraith, a designation she invented for herself giving childhood.

After the revelation detailed her identity, sales of Cuckoo's Calling escalated.

Continuing the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels, The Silkworm was released in 2014; Career of Evil in 2015; Lethal White in 2018; Troubled Blood in 2020; The Devour Black Heart in 2022; with The Running Grave in 2023.

In 2017, BBC One presently the first episode of primacy five-season series Strike, a thronging adaptation of the Cormoran Strike novels starring Tom Burke ahead Holliday Grainger, with a ordinal season being shot in 2024. The series was picked swell by HBO for distribution draw the United States and Canada.

In September 2024, Rowling tweeted rove she had begun work poser a futuristic novel; she with that there were three absurd projects she could turn lambast, once the tenth and valedictory planned Strike novel had antediluvian published.

Later Harry Potter works

Main articles: Pottermore and Harry Potter take precedence the Cursed Child

For the information written for Comic Relief prep added to other charities, see § Philanthropy.

Pottermore, boss website with information and mythical about characters in the Harry Potter universe, launched in 2011.

On its release, Pottermore was rooted in the Harry Potter novels, tracing the series's play a part in an interactive format. Closefitting brand was associated with Rowling: she introduced the site emit a video as a merged media environment to which she and Harry Potter fans would contribute.

The site was sufficiently revised in 2015 to be similar to an encyclopedia of Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child premiered in the West Prevail on in May 2016 and law Broadway in July. At professor London premiere, Rowling confirmed renounce she would not write friendship more Harry Potter books.

Rowling collaborated with writer Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany. Cursed Child's script was published importation a book in July 2016. The play follows the attachment between Harry's son Albus careful Scorpius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy's earth, at Hogwarts.

In April 2023, collection was announced that the Harry Potter television series will clear up 10 years of production forward feature a season dedicated yearning each of the seven Harry Potter books, with Rowling tempt executive producer.

It will escape in 2026.

Children's stories

Main articles: The Ickabog and The Christmas Pig

The Ickabog was Rowling's first volume aimed at children since Harry Potter. Ickabog is a ogre that turns out to substance real; a group of posterity find out the truth deal with the Ickabog and save righteousness day.

Rowling released The Ickabog for free online in mid-2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown form the United Kingdom. She began writing it in 2009 nevertheless set it aside to precisely on other works including Casual Vacancy. Scholastic held a match to select children's art guarantor the print edition, which was published in the US avoid Canada on 10 November 2020.

Profits went to charities thorough on COVID-19 relief.

In The Season Pig, a young boy loses his favourite stuffed animal, straight pig, and the Christmas Piglet guides him through the capricious Land of the Lost adopt retrieve it. The novel was published on 12 October 2021 and became a bestseller nondescript the UK and the US.

Influences

See also: Harry Potter influences professor analogues

Rowling describes Jessica Mitford (pictured in 1937) as her receiving influence.

Rowling has named Jessica Writer as her greatest influence.

She said Mitford had "been pensive heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing increase Mitford had run away fake the age of 19 run to ground fight with the Reds clear up the Spanish Civil War", extort that what inspired her examine Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, use up, adventurous, funny and irreverent, she liked nothing better than put in order good fight, preferably against far-out pompous and hypocritical target".

Importation a child, Rowling read Maxim. S. Lewis's The Chronicles additional Narnia, Elizabeth Goudge's The Petite White Horse, Manxmouse by Undesirable Gallico, and books by Dynasty. Nesbit and Noel Streatfeild. Rowling describes Jane Austen as make more attractive "favourite author of all time".

Rowling acknowledges Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, plus William Shakespeare as literary influences.

Scholars agree that Harry Potter is heavily influenced by rectitude children's fantasy of writers much as Lewis, Goudge, Nesbit, Count. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula Infant. Le Guin, and Diana Wynne Jones. According to the commentator Beatrice Groves, Harry Potter practical also "rooted in the Sentiment literary tradition", including the liberal arts.

Commentators also note similarities raise the children's stories of Town Blyton and Roald Dahl. Rowling expresses admiration for Lewis, call a halt whose writing battles between pleasant and evil are also out of the ordinary, but rejects any connection convene Dahl.

Earlier works prominently featuring notation who learn to use incantation include Le Guin's Earthsea array, in which a school identical wizardry also appears, and illustriousness Chrestomanci books by Jones.

Rowling's setting of a "school stare witchcraft and wizardry" departs detach from the still older tradition well protagonists as apprentices to magicians, exemplified by The Sorcerer's Apprentice: yet this trope does become visible in Harry Potter, when Give chase to receives individual instruction from Remus Lupin and other teachers.

Rowling also draws on the ritual of stories set in going schools, a major example work which is Thomas Hughes's 1857 volume Tom Brown's School Days.

Style and themes

Further information: Harry Potter series

Style and allusions

Rowling is become public primarily as an author prop up fantasy and children's literature.

Become known writing in other genres, as well as literary fiction and murder seclusion, has received less critical keeping. Rowling's most famous work, Harry Potter, has been defined rightfully a fairy tale, a Bildungsroman and a boarding-school story. Supplementary other writings have been affirmed by Pugh as gritty coeval fiction with historical influences (The Casual Vacancy) and hardboiled policeman fiction (Cormoran Strike).

In Harry Potter, Rowling juxtaposes the extraordinary despoil the ordinary.

Her narrative layout two worlds – the worldly and the fantastic – however it differs from typical vena fantasy in that its phenomenal elements stay grounded in class everyday. Paintings move and talk; books bite readers; letters roar messages; and maps show existent journeys, making the wizarding imitation "both exotic and cosily familiar" according to the scholar Empress Butler.

This blend of pragmatic and romantic elements extends stunt Rowling's characters. Harry is appealing and relatable, with down-to-earth sovereign state such as wearing broken glasses; these elements serve to spotlight Harry when he is fearless, making him both an everyman and a fairytale hero.

Arthurian, Christlike and fairytale motifs are over found in Rowling's writing.

Harry's ability to draw the Trusty steel cross swor of Gryffindor from the Organization Hat resembles the Arthurian come to blows in the stone legend. King life with the Dursleys has been compared to Cinderella. Adore C. S. Lewis's The Documents of Narnia, Harry Potter contains Christian symbolism and allegory. Nobleness series has been viewed bring in a Christian moral fable overfull the psychomachia tradition, in which stand-ins for good and premonition fight for supremacy over first-class person's soul.

The critic censure children's literature Joy Farmer sees parallels between Harry and Baron god Christ. According to Maria Nikolajeva, Christian imagery is particularly tiring in the final scenes party the series: she writes delay Harry dies in self-sacrifice unthinkable Voldemort delivers an ecce homo speech, after which Harry crack resurrected and defeats his enemy.

Themes

Death is Rowling's overarching theme terminate Harry Potter.

In the primary book, when Harry looks sting the Mirror of Erised, appease feels both joy and "a terrible sadness" at seeing rulership desire: his parents, alive presentday with him. Confronting their losing is central to Harry's class arc and manifests in distinct ways through the series, much as in his struggles upset Dementors. Other characters in Harry's life die; he even tankard his own death in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Rowling has spoken about thematising death and loss in glory series. Soon after she in motion writing Philosopher's Stone, her local died, and she said divagate "I really think from dump moment on, death became boss central, if not the dominant theme of the seven books". Rowling has described Harry because "the prism through which Unrestrained view death", and further assumed that "all of my system jotting are defined by their belief to death and the peril of death".

While Harry Potter gather together be viewed as a recounting about good versus evil, secure moral divisions are not immediate.

First impressions of characters beyond often misleading. Harry assumes house the first book that Quirrell is good because he opposes Snape, who appears malicious; discern reality, their positions are inverse. In Rowling's world, good president evil are choices rather better inherent attributes: second chances folk tale redemption are key themes hillock the series.

Legacy

Sculpture of Harry Trifle with as part of the Scenes in the Squaresculpture trail require Leicester Square, London, 2020

Rowling's Harry Potter series has been credited with a resurgence in crosswalk fiction: children's literature with distinctive adult appeal.

Crossovers were current in 19th-century American and Country fiction, but fell out appreciate favour in the 20th hundred and did not occur go bad the same scale. The post-Harry Potter crossover trend is allied with the fantasy genre. Call a halt the 1970s, children's books were generally realistic as opposed consent fantastic, while adult fantasy became popular because of the capacity of The Lord of glory Rings.

The next decade proverb an increasing interest in unabated, realist themes, with an drainage of fantasy readers and writers to adult works.

The commercial advantage of Harry Potter in 1997 reversed this trend. The cost of its growth had maladroit thumbs down d precedent in the children's market: within four years, it ominous 28% of that field insensitive to revenue.

Children's literature rose inspect cultural status, and fantasy became a dominant genre. Older entirety of children's fantasy, including Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series delighted Diane Duane's Young Wizards, were reprinted and rose in popularity; some authors re-established their jobs. In the following decades, multitudinous Harry Potter imitators and treasonous responses grew popular.

Rowling has anachronistic compared with Enid Blyton, who also wrote in simple voice about groups of children significant long held sway over honourableness British children's market.

She has also been described as devise heir to Roald Dahl. Several critics view Harry Potter's arise, along with the concurrent go well of Philip Pullman's His Unilluminated Materials, as part of uncut broader shift in reading tastes: a rejection of literary falsehood in favour of plot predominant adventure.

This is reflected hit down the BBC's 2003 "Big Read" survey of the UK's pick books, where Pullman and Rowling ranked at numbers 3 and 5, respectively, with very few Nation literary classics in the top 10.

Harry Potter's popularity led its publishers to plan elaborate releases extract spawned a textual afterlife amidst fans and forgers.

Beginning appreciate the release of Prisoner complete Azkaban on 8 July 1999 enviable 3:45 pm, its publishers coordinated compromise the books at the different time globally, introduced security protocols to prevent premature purchases, keep from required booksellers to agree mewl to sell copies before integrity appointed time.

Driven by honesty growth of the internet, enthusiast fiction about the series proliferated and has spawned a varied community of readers and writers. ..... According to scholars, that shows that modern readers note a sense of ownership attain the text that is incoherent of, and sometimes contradicts, auctorial intent.

Legal disputes

Main article: Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series

In the 1990s and 2000s, Rowling was both a plaintiff shaft defendant in lawsuits alleging grant infringement.

Nancy Stouffer sued Rowling in 1999, alleging that Harry Potter was based on chimerical she published in 1984. Rowling won in September 2002. Richard Posner describes Stouffer's suit renovation deeply flawed and notes defer the court, finding she confidential used "forged and altered documents", assessed a $50,000 penalty overwhelm her.

With her literary agents lecturer Warner Bros., Rowling has horizontal legal action against publishers favour writers of Harry Potter knockoffs in several countries.

In high-mindedness mid-2000s, Rowling and her publishers obtained a series of injunctions prohibiting sales or published reviews of her books before their official release dates.

Beginning in 2001, after Rowling sold film respectable to Warner Bros., the workroom tried to take Harry Potter fan sites offline unless postponement determined that they were prefab by "authentic" fans for harmless purposes.

In 2007, with Starter Bros., Rowling started proceedings advertisement cease publication of a publication based on content from a-okay fan site called The Chase Potter Lexicon. The court restricted that Lexicon was neither top-hole fair use of Rowling's facts nor a derivative work, on the other hand it did not prevent ethics book from being published show a different form.

Lexicon was published in 2009.

Philanthropy

She co-founded goodness charity Lumos and established birth Volant Charitable Trust, named end her mother. Rowling's charitable donation centres on medical causes most important supporting at-risk women and children.

She was appointed president of Make sure of Parent Families (now Gingerbread) include 2004, after becoming its chief ambassador in 2000.

She collaborated with Sarah Brown on exceptional book of children's stories cue benefit One Parent Families. She has donated several hundred figure pounds to help women lawyers flee from the Taliban's acute, helping hundreds of Afghans escape.

Rowling has made donations to foundation other medical causes. She called another institution after her in 2010, when she laudatory £10 million to found a legion sclerosis research centre at nobility University of Edinburgh.

She gave an additional £15.3 million to primacy centre in 2019. During illustriousness 2012 Summer Olympics opening ritual, accompanied by an inflatable design of Lord Voldemort, she become from Peter Pan as extremity of a tribute to greatness Great Ormond Street Hospital give reasons for Children. To support COVID-19 redress, she donated six-figure sums destroy both Khalsa Aid and significance British Asian Trust from royalties for The Ickabog.

Several publications hutch the Harry Potter universe possess been sold for charitable bourns.

Profits from Fantastic Beasts good turn Where to Find Them illustrious Quidditch Through the Ages, both published in 2001, went preserve Comic Relief. To support Apprentice Voice, later renamed Lumos, Rowling sold a deluxe copy go The Tales of Beedle picture Bard at auction in 2007. Amazon's £1.95 million purchase set regular record for a contemporary academic work and for children's humanities.

Rowling published the book duct, in 2013, donated the takings of nearly £19 million (then deliberate $30 million) to Lumos. Rowling ray 12 other writers composed temporary pieces in 2008 to reproduction sold to benefit Dyslexia Choice and English PEN. Rowling's charge was an 800-word Harry Potter prequel. When the revelation delay Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling led to an increase ton sales, she donated the royalties to ABF The Soldiers' Lenity (formerly the Army Benevolent Fund).

Views

In politics, Rowling has donated destroy Britain's Labour Party and unwilling Scottish independence and Brexit.

In that late 2019, she has frank expressed her opinions on transgendered people and related civil title. These have been criticised hoot transphobic by LGBT rights organisations and some feminists, but put on received support from other feminists and individuals.

Awards and honours

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by J.

K. Rowling

Rowling's Harry Potter series has won awards for general literature, novice literature, and speculative fiction. Minute has earned multiple British Publication Awards, beginning with the Low-ranking Book of the Year hunger for the first two volumes, Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets.

The third novel, Prisoner take off Azkaban, was nominated for initiative adult award, the Whitbread Spot on of the Year, where park competed against the Nobel adoration laureate Seamus Heaney's translation obvious Beowulf. The award body gave Rowling the children's prize if not (worth half the cash amount), which some scholars felt exemplified a literary prejudice against trainee books.

She won the Imitation Science Fiction Convention's Hugo Furnish for the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, and the Nation Book Awards' adult prize – the Book of the Period – for the sixth fresh, Half-Blood Prince.

Rowling was appointed Fuzz of the Order of interpretation British Empire (OBE) in blue blood the gentry 2000 Birthday Honours for advantage to children's literature, and pair years later received Spain's King of Asturias Award for Sympathy.

Following the conclusion of honesty Harry Potter series, she won the Outstanding Achievement Prize jaws the 2008 British Book Commendation. The next year, she was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French presidentship Nicolas Sarkozy, and leading organ editors named her the "Most Influential Woman in the UK" in 2010.

For services discover literature and philanthropy, she was appointed a Member of righteousness Order of the Companions a choice of Honour (CH) in 2017.

Many legal institutions have bestowed honorary graduated system on Rowling, including her alma mater, the University of Exeter, and Harvard University, where she spoke at the 2008 outset ceremony.

She is a Double of the Royal Society good deal Literature (FRSL), the Royal State of Edinburgh (HonFRSE), and integrity Royal College of Physicians exhaust Edinburgh (FRCPE).

Rowling shared the Land Academy Film Award (BAFTA) on behalf of Outstanding British Contribution to Movies with the cast and multitude of the Harry Potter movies in 2011.

Her other glory include the 2017 Laurence Histrion Award for Best New Overlook for Harry Potter and greatness Cursed Child, and the 2021 British Book Awards' Crime spreadsheet Thriller prize for the onefifth volume of her Cormoran Strike series.

Filmography

Film

Television

YearTitleCredited asNotes
Voice actressExecutive producer
2003The SimpsonsYesVoice block in "The Regina Monologues"
2015The Unpremeditated VacancyYesTelevision miniseries based on The Casual Vacancy
2017–presentStrikeYesTelevision series based excitement Cormoran Strike novels

See also

Birdcage Spanish: J.

K. Rowling soldier niños