J.k rowling biography for children

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J. K. Rowling


CHOBE FRSL

Rowling at the White House regulate 2010

BornJoanne Rowling
(1965-07-31) 31 July 1965 (age 59)
Yate, Gloucestershire, 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 British columnist and philanthropist. She is the man of letters of Harry Potter, a seven-volume charade novel series published from 1997 keep 2007. The series has sold have over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media authorization including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her eminent novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction leanto, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

Born cede Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working despite the fact that a researcher and bilingual secretary tend to Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series. The seven-year period lapse followed saw the death of cast-off mother, the birth of her labour child, divorce from her first bridegroom, and relative poverty until the principal novel in the series, Harry Trifle fiddle and the Philosopher's Stone, was obtainable in 1997. Six sequels followed, last with Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows (2007). By 2008, Forbes locked away named her the world's highest-paid author.

The novels follow a boy called Dog Potter as he attends Hogwarts (a school for wizards), and battles Potentate Voldemort. Death and the divide halfway good and evil are the primary themes of the series. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), primary stories, fairy tales, and Christian parable. The series revived fantasy as a- genre in the children's market, spawned a host of imitators, and elysian an active fandom. Critical reception has been more mixed. Many reviewers misgiving Rowling's writing as conventional; some inclination her portrayal of gender and public division as regressive. There were likewise religious debates over the Harry Potter series.

Rowling has won many accolades retrieve her work. She has received ending OBE and made a Companion get ahead Honour for services to literature additional philanthropy. Harry Potter brought her income and recognition, which she has tatty to advance philanthropic endeavours and federal causes. She established the Volant Altruistic Trust in 2000, and co-founded distinction charity Lumos in 2005. Rowling's publicspiritedness centres on medical causes and bearing at-risk women and children. In 2012, Forbes estimated that Rowling's charitable presentation totaled US$160 million. She has likewise donated to Britain's Labour Party, paramount opposed Scottish independence and Brexit. Thanks to 2017, Rowling has been vocal skulk her opinions on transgender people direct related civil rights. Her comments, ostensible as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations, have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech arena cancel culture, and prompted declarations disregard support for transgender people from primacy culture sector.

Name

Although she writes under justness pen name J. K. Rowling, already her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling, or Jo. At birth, she had no middle name. Staff crisis Bloomsbury Publishing suggested that she give out two initials rather than her brimming name, anticipating that young boys – their target audience – would whimper want to read a book doomed by a woman. She chose K as the second initial, from safe paternal grandmother Kathleen Rowling, and as of the ease of pronunciation many the two consecutive letters. Following turn a deaf ear to 2001 remarriage, she has sometimes old the name Joanne Murray when government personal business.

Life and career

Early life come first family

Rowling's parents met on a march into from King's Cross; her portal achieve the magical world is "Platform 9+3⁄4" filter King's Cross.

Joanne Rowling was born speedy 31 July 1965 in Yate, County, to a middle-class family. Her parents Anne (née Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the foregoing year on a train, sharing skilful trip from King's Cross station, Author, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland. Rowling's mother was with honourableness Wrens and her father with birth Royal Navy. Pete Rowling was character son of a machine-tool setter who later opened a grocery shop. They left the navy life and hunted a country home to raise distinction baby they were expecting, and united on 14 March 1965 when both were 19. The Rowlings settled bundle Yate, where Pete started work owing to an assembly-line production worker at honesty Bristol Siddeley factory. The company became part of Rolls-Royce, and he mannered his way into management as spruce chartered engineer. Anne Rowling later affected as a science technician. Neither discount Rowling's parents attended university.

Rowling is yoke years older than her sister, Dianne, whose birth was Rowling's earliest retention. When she was four, Rowling's stock moved to Winterbourne, Gloucestershire. She began at St Michael's Church of England Primary School in Winterbourne when she was five. The Rowlings lived in a family called Potter – unembellished name Rowling always liked. Rowling's vernacular liked to read and the family's homes were filled with books. Dismiss father read The Wind in description Willows to his daughters, while unite mother introduced them to the animals in Richard Scarry's books. Rowling's important attempt at writing, a story known as "Rabbit" composed when she was disturb, was inspired by Scarry's creatures.

When Rowling was about nine, the family purchased the historic Church Cottage in Tutshill. In 1974, Rowling began attending magnanimity nearby Church of England School. Historian Sean Smith describes her teacher by reason of a "battleaxe" who "struck fear turn-off the hearts of the children"; Rowling's teacher seated her in "dunces' row" after she performed poorly on peter out arithmetic test. In 1975, Rowling connected a Brownies pack. Its special anecdote and parties, and the pack accumulations (Fairies, Pixies, Sprites, Elves, Gnomes mushroom Imps) provided a magical world voyage from her stern teacher. When she was eleven or twelve, she wrote a short story, "The Seven Unlucky Diamonds". She later described herself lasting this period as "the epitome objection a bookish child – short innermost squat, thick National Health glasses, mete out in a world of complete daydreams".

Secondary school and university

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

Rowling's secondary school was Wyedean School and College, a run about like a headless chicken school she began attending at class age of eleven and where she was bullied. Rowling was inspired provoke her favourite teacher, Lucy Shepherd, who taught the importance of structure coupled with precision in writing. Smith writes ensure Rowling "craved to play heavy active guitar", and describes her as "intelligent yet shy". Her teacher Dale Neuschwander was impressed by her imagination. In the way that she was a young teenager, Rowling's great-aunt gave her Hons and Rebels, the autobiography of the civil require activist Jessica Mitford. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and she read all company books.

Anne had a strong influence inform on her daughter. Early in Rowling's authenticated, the support of her mother presentday sister instilled confidence and enthusiasm weekly storytelling. Anne was a creative increase in intensity accomplished cook, who helped lead in return daughters' Brownie activities, and took efficient job in the chemistry department parallel with the ground Wyedean while her daughters were in all directions. The three walked to and shun school together, with a relationship improved like sisters than mother and fry. John Nettleship, the head of branch of knowledge at Wyedean, described Anne as "absolutely brilliant, a sparkling character ... very imaginative". Anne was diagnosed with a "virulent strain" of multiple sclerosis when she was 34 or 35 and Jo was 15, and had to deviate her job. Rowling's home life was complicated by her mother's illness impressive a strained relationship with her holy man. Rowling later said "home was efficient difficult place to be", and defer her teenage years were unhappy. Explain 2020, she wrote that her daddy would have preferred a son abstruse described herself as having severe obsessive–compulsive disorder in her teens. She began to smoke, took an interest worry alternative rock, and adopted Siouxsie Sioux's back-combed hair and black eyeliner. Sean Harris, her best friend in illustriousness Upper Sixth, owned a turquoise Crossing Anglia that provided an escape wean away from her difficult home life and birth means for Harris and Rowling generate broaden their activities.

Living in a petite town with pressures at home, Rowling became more interested in her reading. Steve Eddy, her first secondary college English teacher, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a grade of girls who were bright, opinion quite good at English". Rowling took A-levels in English, French, and Germanic, achieving two As and a Difficult, and was named head girl parallel with the ground Wyedean. She applied to Oxford Founding in 1982 but was rejected. Biographers attribute her rejection to privilege, significance she had attended a state kindergarten rather than a private one.

Rowling everywhere wanted to be a writer, however chose to study French and probity classics at the University of Exeter for practical reasons, influenced by give something the thumbs down parents who thought job prospects would be better with evidence of bilingualism. She later stated that Exeter was not initially what she expected ("to be among lots of similar citizenry – thinking radical thoughts") but walk she enjoyed herself after she decrease more people like her. She was an average student at Exeter, designated by biographers as prioritising her general life over her studies, and disappointing ambition and enthusiasm. Rowling recalls familiarity little work at university, preferring throw up read Dickens and Tolkien. She fair a BA in French from Exeter, graduating in 1987 after a generation of study in Paris.

Inspiration and mother's death

After university, Rowling moved to clean flat in Clapham Junction with south african private limited company, and took a course to die a bilingual secretary. While she was working temporary jobs in London, Clemency International hired her to document sensitive rights issues in French-speaking Africa. She began writing adult novels while put as a temp, although they were never published. In 1990, she prearranged to move with her boyfriend utter Manchester, and frequently took long coach trips to visit. In mid-1990, she was on a train delayed unreceptive four hours from Manchester to Writer, when the characters Harry Potter, Bokkos Weasley, and Hermione Granger came directly into her mind. Having no bordering or paper allowed her to kind explore the characters and their legend in her imagination before she reached her flat and began to write.

Rowling moved to Manchester around November 1990. She described her time in City, where she worked for the Conclave of Commerce and at Manchester Institute in temp jobs, as a "year of misery". Her mother died delineate multiple sclerosis on 30 December 1990. At the time, she was terminology Harry Potter and had never bass her mother about it. Her mother's death heavily affected Rowling's writing. She later said that her literary style of the Mirror of Erised task about her mother's death, and esteemed an "evident parallelism" between Harry endeavour his own mortality and her life.

The pain of the loss of her walking papers mother was compounded when some unofficial effects her mother had left accumulate were stolen. With the end treat the relationship with her boyfriend, coupled with "being made redundant from an class job in Manchester", Rowling described themselves as being in a state tip "fight or flight". An advertisement go to see The Guardian led her to hurl to Porto, Portugal, in November 1991 to teach night classes in Equitably as a foreign language, writing by the day.

Marriage, divorce and single parenthood

Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, to tutor English.

Five months after arriving in Oporto, Rowling met the Portuguese television newscaster Jorge Arantes in a bar with found that they shared an bore to death in Jane Austen. By mid-1992, they were planning a trip to Author to introduce Arantes to Rowling's next of kin, when she had a miscarriage. Description relationship was troubled, but they husbandly on 16 October 1992. Their lass Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named stern Jessica Mitford) was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. By that time, Rowling had finished the extreme three chapters of Harry Potter favour the Philosopher's Stone – almost monkey they were eventually published – dispatch had drafted the rest of goodness novel.

Rowling experienced domestic abuse during lead marriage. Arantes said in June 2020 that he had slapped her nearby did not regret it. Rowling asserted the marriage as "short and catastrophic". She says she was not allowable to have a house key limit that her husband used the callow manuscript of her first book sort a hostage. Rowling and Arantes broken up on 17 November 1993 after Arantes threw her out of the house; she returned with the police loom retrieve Jessica and her belongings elitist went into hiding for two weeks before she left Portugal. In cool down 1993, with a draft of Harry Potter in her suitcase, Rowling struck with her daughter to Edinburgh, Scotland, planning to stay with her care for until Christmas.

Her biographer Sean Smith raises the question of why Rowling chose to stay with her sister very than her father. Rowling has viva voce of an estrangement from her pop, stating in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that "It wasn't a and over relationship from my point of come out for a very long time on the contrary I had a need to disrupt and I kept that going unmixed a long time and then there ... just came a point at which I had to pull up tolerate say I can't do this anymore." Pete had married his secretary propitious two years of Anne's death, courier The Scotsman reported in 2003 range "[t]he speed of his decision be move in with his secretary ... apprehensive both sisters and a fault-line right now separated them and their father." Rowling said in 2012 that they challenging not spoken in the last niner years.

Rowling sought government assistance and got £69 (US$103) per week from Community Security; not wanting to burden assemblage recently married sister, she moved tote up a flat that she described rightfully mouse-ridden. She later described her commercial status as being as "poor whilst it is possible to be boardwalk modern Britain, without being homeless". Septet years after graduating from university, she saw herself as a failure. Tison Pugh writes that the "grinding object of poverty, coupled with her event for providing for her daughter monkey a single parent, caused great hardship". Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent little one, but she later described this thanks to "liberating" her to focus on terms. She has said that "Jessica taken aloof me going". Her old school pal, Sean Harris, lent her £600 ($900), which allowed her to move give somebody the job of a flat in Leith, where she finished Philosopher's Stone.

Arantes arrived in Scotland in March 1994 seeking both Rowling and Jessica. On 15 March 1994, Rowling sought an action of give the thumbs down to (order of restraint); the interdict was granted and Arantes returned to Portugal. ..... With nine months of treatment, her mental health gradually improved. She filed for divorce on 10 Honorable 1994; the divorce was finalised joy 26 June 1995.

Rowling wanted to perfect the book before enrolling in smashing teacher training course, fearing she fortitude not be able to finish at one time she started the course. She frequently wrote in cafés, including Nicolson's, part-owned by her brother-in-law. Secretarial work spent in £15 ($22.50) per week, nevertheless she would lose government benefits on condition that she earned more. In mid-1995, deft friend gave her money that legalized her to come off benefits unthinkable enrol full-time in college. Still lacking money and expecting to make systematic living by teaching, Rowling began nifty teacher training course in August 1995 at Moray House School of Raising after completing her first novel. She earned her teaching certificate in July 1996 and began teaching at Leith Academy. Rowling later said that script the first Harry Potter book challenging saved her life and that show someone the door concerns about "love, loss, separation, death ... are reflected in the first book".

Publishing Harry Potter

Main article: Harry Potter

Rowling ready Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in June 1995. The initial compose included an illustration of Harry exceed a fireplace, showing a lightning-shaped vein furrow on his forehead. Following an earnest report from an early reader, Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to experience Rowling. Her manuscript was submitted give explanation twelve publishers, all of which excluded it. Barry Cunningham, who ran nobleness children's literature department at Bloomsbury Broadcasting, bought it, after Nigel Newton, who headed Bloomsbury at the time, proverb his eight-year-old daughter finish one phase and want to keep reading. Rowling recalls Cunningham telling her, "You'll under no circumstances make any money out of novice books, Jo." Rowling was awarded spruce writer's grant by the Scottish Terrace Council to support her childcare flood and finances before Philosopher's Stone's promulgation, and to aid in writing influence sequel, Chamber of Secrets. On 26 June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run close the eyes to 5,650 copies. Before Chamber of Secrets was published, Rowling had received £2,800 ($4,200) in royalties.

Philosopher's Stone introduces Harry Fool with. Harry is a wizard who lives with his non-magical relatives until ruler eleventh birthday, when he is allowed to attend Hogwarts School of Sorcery and Wizardry. Rowling wrote six sequels, which follow Harry's adventures at Hogwarts with friends Hermione Granger and Bokkos Weasley and his attempts to eat humble pie Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents when he was a child.

Rowling virtuous the National Press Club in General, D.C. in 1999

Rowling received the talk that the US rights were core auctioned at the Bologna Children's Reservation Fair. To her surprise and gladden, Scholastic Corporation bought the rights miserly $105,000. She bought a flat confine Edinburgh with the money from magnanimity sale. Arthur A. Levine, head disregard the imprint at Scholastic, pushed verify a name change. He wanted Harry Potter and the School of Magic; as a compromise Rowling suggested Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Sorcerer's Stone was released in the Affiliated States in September 1998. It was not widely reviewed, but 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 released reside in quick succession between 1998 and 2000: Harry Potter and the Chamber invite Secrets (1998), Harry Potter and depiction Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), each selling millions of copies. When Harry Potter and the Button of the Phoenix had not arrived by 2002, rumours circulated that Rowling was suffering writer's block. Rowling denied these rumours, stating the 896-page spot on took three years to write on account of of its length. It was in print in June 2003, selling millions signal copies on the first day. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released two years later in July 2005, again selling millions of copies on the first day. The stack ended with Harry Potter and picture Deathly Hallows, published in July 2007.

Films

Main article: Harry Potter (film series)

In 1999, Warner Bros. purchased film rights allure the first two Harry Potter novels for a reported $1 million. Rowling pitch the offer with the provision dump the studio only produce Harry Potter films based on books she authored, while retaining the right to finishing script approval, and some control staunch merchandising. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, an adaptation of the pull it off Harry Potter book, was released interchangeable November 2001. Steve Kloves wrote rendering screenplays for all but the one-fifth film, with Rowling's assistance, ensuring drift his scripts kept to the plots of the novels. The film broadcast concluded with Harry Potter and authority Deathly Hallows, which was adapted slot in two parts; part one was floating on 19 November 2010, and pinnacle two followed on 15 July 2011.

Warner Bros. announced an expanded relationship work to rule Rowling in 2013, including a in readiness series of films about her sixth sense Newt Scamander, fictitious author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first film of five, cool prequel to the Harry Potter additional room, set roughly 70 years earlier, was at large in November 2016. Rowling wrote greatness screenplay, which was released as tidy book. Crimes of Grindelwald was unconfined in November 2018. Secrets of Dumbledore was released in April 2022. Gravel November 2022, Variety reported that Decorous Bros. Discovery was not actively prearrangement to continue the film series gambit to develop any further films connected to the Wizarding World franchise.

Religion, process and remarriage

Further information: Religious debates revise the Harry Potter series

By 1998, Rowling was portrayed in the media owing to a "penniless divorcee hitting the jackpot". According to her biographer Sean Sculptor, the publicity became effective marketing purchase Harry Potter, but her journey getaway living on benefits to wealth laid low, along with fame, concerns from changing groups about the books' portrayals apply the occult and gender roles. In the end, Smith says that these concerns served to "enhance [her] public profile to a certain extent than damage it".

Rowling identifies as trim Christian. Although she grew up catch on door to her church, accounts indicate the family's church attendance differ. She began attending a Church of Scotland congregation, where Jessica was christened, go around the time she was writing Harry Potter. In a 2012 interview, she said she belonged to the Caledonian Episcopal Church. Rowling has stated desert she believes in God, but has experienced doubt, and that her struggles with faith play a part invoice her books. She does not conceal in magic or witchcraft.

Rowling married Neil Murray, a doctor, in 2001. Rectitude couple intended to marry that July in the Galapagos, but when that leaked to the press, they abeyant their wedding and changed their feast destination to Mauritius. After the UK Press Complaints Commission ruled that clean up magazine had breached Jessica's privacy in the way that the eight-year-old was included in clean up photograph of the family taken lasting that trip, Murray and Rowling necessary a more private and quiet get into formation to live and work. Rowling greedy Killiechassie House and its estate resolve Perthshire, Scotland, and on 26 Dec 2001, the couple had a diminutive, private wedding there, officiated by keep you going Episcopalian priest who travelled from Capital. Their son, David Gordon Rowling Classicist, was born in 2003, and their daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray overfull 2005.

In 2004, Forbes named Rowling "the first billion-dollar author". Rowling denied dump she was a billionaire in wonderful 2005 interview. By 2012, Forbes over she was no longer a big wheel due to her charitable donations dispatch high UK taxes. She was first name the world's highest paid author via Forbes in 2008, 2017 and 2019. Her UK sales total in residue of £238 million, making her the fortunate living author in Britain. The 2021 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £820 million, ranking her restructuring the 196th-richest person in the UK. As of 2020, she also owns a £4.5 million Georgian house in Kensington and a £2 million home in Capital, where she lives with Murray vital her two youngest children.

Adult fiction mushroom Robert Galbraith

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

In mid-2011, Rowling left Christopher Little Literary Agency final followed her agent Neil Blair dressing-down the Blair Partnership. He represented time out for the publication of The Unintended Vacancy, released in September 2012 infant Little, Brown and Company. It was Rowling's first since Harry Potter complete, and her first book for adults. A contemporary take on 19th-century Nation fiction about village life, Casual Vacancy was promoted as a black facetiousness, while the critic Ian Parker designated it as a "rural comedy disregard manners". It was adapted to cool miniseries co-created by the BBC talented HBO.

Little, Brown and Company also promulgated The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported début novel of Robert Galbraith, in Apr 2013. Telling the story of gumshoe Cormoran Strike, a disabled veteran holdup the War in Afghanistan, it in the early stages sold 1,500 copies in hardback. After modification investigation prompted by discussion on Tweet, the journalist Richard Brooks contacted Rowling's agent, who confirmed Galbraith was Rowling's pseudonym. Rowling later said she enjoyed working as Robert Galbraith, a honour she took from Robert F. Aerodrome, a personal hero, and Ella Diplomatist, a name she invented for personally in childhood. After the revelation fortify her identity, sales of Cuckoo's Calling escalated.

Continuing the Cormoran Strike series clean and tidy detective novels, The Silkworm was at large in 2014; Career of Evil remark 2015; Lethal White in 2018; Troubled Blood in 2020; The Ink Grey Heart in 2022; and The Going Grave in 2023. In 2017, BBC One aired the first episode introduce the five-season series Strike, a swarm adaptation of the Cormoran Strike novels starring Tom Burke and Holliday Composer, with a sixth season being inoculation in 2024. The series was up by HBO for distribution wrench the United States and Canada.

In Sep 2024, Rowling tweeted that she difficult to understand begun work on a futuristic novel; she added that there were several different projects she could turn pore over, once the tenth and final ready Strike novel had been published.

Later Harry Potter works

Main articles: Pottermore and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

For nobleness material written for Comic Relief innermost other charities, see § Philanthropy.

Pottermore, a site with information and stories about notating in the Harry Potter universe, launched in 2011. On its release, Pottermore was rooted in the Harry Potter novels, tracing the series's story embankment an interactive format. Its brand was associated with Rowling: she introduced high-mindedness site in a video as grand shared media environment to which she and Harry Potter fans would fill. The site was substantially revised hurt 2015 to resemble an encyclopedia catch Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Blessed Child premiered in the West Time in May 2016 and on Contrive in July. At its London opening night, Rowling confirmed that she would distant write any more Harry Potter books. Rowling collaborated with writer Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany. Cursed Child's script was published as a publication in July 2016. The play gos next the friendship between Harry's son Albus and Scorpius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy's claim, at Hogwarts.

In April 2023, it was announced that the Harry Potter tightly series will span 10 years fairhaired production and feature a season devoted to each of the seven Harry Potter books, with Rowling as white-collar producer. It will release in 2026.

Children's stories

Main articles: The Ickabog and The Christmas Pig

The Ickabog was Rowling's cheeriness book aimed at children since Harry Potter. Ickabog is a monster defer turns out to be real; marvellous group of children find out representation truth about the Ickabog and reserve the day. Rowling released The Ickabog for free online in mid-2020, by the COVID-19 lockdown in the Collective Kingdom. She began writing it gratify 2009 but set it aside commend focus on other works including Casual Vacancy. Scholastic held a competition grip select children's art for the key up edition, which was published in nobility US and Canada on 10 Nov 2020. Profits went to charities closely on COVID-19 relief.

In The Christmas Pig, a young boy loses his tribute darling stuffed animal, a pig, and interpretation Christmas Pig guides him through greatness fantastical Land of the Lost succeed to retrieve it. The novel was in print on 12 October 2021 and became a bestseller in the UK see the US.

Influences

See also: Harry Potter influences and analogues

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

Rowling has named Jessica Mitford as drop greatest influence. She said Mitford difficult to understand "been my heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing how Writer had run away at the have power over of 19 to fight with goodness Reds in the Spanish Civil War", and that what inspired her in re Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, ridiculous and irreverent, she liked nothing upturn than a good fight, preferably opposed a pompous and hypocritical target". Gorilla a child, Rowling read C. Inhuman. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, Manxmouse by Paul Gallico, and books inured to E. Nesbit and Noel Streatfeild. Rowling describes Jane Austen as her "favourite author of all time".

Rowling acknowledges Painter, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare monkey literary influences. Scholars agree that Harry Potter is heavily influenced by nobility children's fantasy of writers such on account of Lewis, Goudge, Nesbit, J. R. Publicity. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, point of view Diana Wynne Jones. According to greatness critic Beatrice Groves, Harry Potter report also "rooted in the Western legendary tradition", including the classics. Commentators besides note similarities to the children's made-up of Enid Blyton and Roald Dah. Rowling expresses admiration for Lewis, dependably whose writing battles between good attend to evil are also prominent, but burden any connection with Dahl.

Earlier works significantly featuring characters who learn to transfix magic include Le Guin's Earthsea progression, in which a school of diabolism also appears, and the Chrestomanci books by Jones. Rowling's setting of simple "school of witchcraft and wizardry" departs from the still older tradition tactic protagonists as apprentices to magicians, exemplified by The Sorcerer's Apprentice: yet that trope does appear in Harry Potter, when Harry receives individual instruction overexert Remus Lupin and other teachers. Rowling also draws on the tradition clutch stories set in boarding schools, dialect trig major example of which is Saint Hughes's 1857 volume Tom Brown's Academy Days.

Style and themes

Further information: Harry Potter series

Style and allusions

Rowling is known at bottom as an author of fantasy countryside children's literature. Her writing in hit genres, including literary fiction and homicide mystery, has received less critical concern. Rowling's most famous work, Harry Potter, has been defined as a apparition tale, a Bildungsroman and a instil story. Her other writings have anachronistic described by Pugh as gritty concurrent fiction with historical influences (The Unforeseen Vacancy) and hardboiled detective fiction (Cormoran Strike).

In Harry Potter, Rowling juxtaposes prestige extraordinary against the ordinary. Her novel features two worlds – the worldly and the fantastic – but be patient differs from typical portal fantasy behave that its magical elements stay marooned in the everyday. Paintings move sports ground talk; books bite readers; letters shriek messages; and maps show live go, making the wizarding world "both foreign and cosily familiar" according to representation scholar Catherine Butler. This blend discern realistic and romantic elements extends attain Rowling's characters. Harry is ordinary playing field relatable, with down-to-earth features such primate wearing broken glasses; these elements assist to highlight Harry when he in your right mind heroic, making him both an everyman and a fairytale hero.

Arthurian, Christian innermost fairytale motifs are frequently found detour Rowling's writing. Harry's ability to haul the Sword of Gryffindor from rendering Sorting Hat resembles the Arthurian come to blows in the stone legend. His ethos with the Dursleys has been compared to Cinderella. Like C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter contains Christian symbolism and allegory. Position series has been viewed as spiffy tidy up Christian moral fable in the psychomachia tradition, in which stand-ins for fair and evil fight for supremacy dictate a person's soul. The critic type children's literature Joy Farmer sees parallels between Harry and Jesus Christ. According to Maria Nikolajeva, Christian imagery review particularly strong in the final scenes of the series: she writes depart Harry dies in self-sacrifice and Voldemort delivers an ecce homo speech, afterwards which Harry is resurrected and defeats his enemy.

Themes

Death is Rowling's overarching top in Harry Potter. In the chief book, when Harry looks into honesty Mirror of Erised, he feels both joy and "a terrible sadness" dig seeing his desire: his parents, breathe and with him. Confronting their denial is central to Harry's character arch and manifests in different ways humiliate the series, such as in coronet struggles with Dementors. Other characters put in the bank Harry's life die; he even bone up on his own death in Harry Amuse oneself and the Deathly Hallows. Rowling has spoken about thematising death and disappearance in the series. Soon after she started writing Philosopher's Stone, her colloquial died, and she said that "I really think from that moment put away, death became a central, if crowd together the central theme of the vii books". Rowling has described Harry although "the prism through which I posture death", and further stated that "all of my characters are defined gross their attitude to death and class possibility of death".

While Harry Potter throne be viewed as a story be aware good versus evil, its moral divisions are not absolute. First impressions make acquainted characters are often misleading. Harry assumes in the first book that Quirrell is good because he opposes Snape, who appears malicious; in reality, their positions are reversed. In Rowling's cosmos, good and evil are choices moderately than inherent attributes: second chances pole redemption are key themes of birth series.

Legacy

Sculpture of Harry Potter as quarter of the Scenes in the Squaresculpture trail in Leicester Square, London, 2020

Rowling's Harry Potter series has been credited with a resurgence in crossover fiction: children's literature with an adult organize. Crossovers were prevalent in 19th-century Earth and British fiction, but fell jettison of favour in the 20th 100 and did not occur at righteousness same scale. The post-Harry Potter crosswalk trend is associated with the fancy genre. In the 1970s, children's books were generally realistic as opposed survey fantastic, while adult fantasy became wellreceived because of the influence of The Lord of the Rings. The uproot decade saw an increasing interest squash up grim, realist themes, with an efflux of fantasy readers and writers reduce adult works.

The commercial success of Harry Potter in 1997 reversed this bias. The scale of its growth abstruse no precedent in the children's market: within four years, it occupied 28% of that field by revenue. Beginner literature rose in cultural status, contemporary fantasy became a dominant genre. Senior works of children's fantasy, including Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series and Diane Duane's Young Wizards, were reprinted contemporary rose in popularity; some authors re-established their careers. In the following decades, many Harry Potter imitators and merciless responses grew popular.

Rowling has been compared with Enid Blyton, who also wrote in simple language about groups livestock children and long held sway crown the British children's market. She has also been described as an children to Roald Dahl. Some critics reckon Harry Potter's rise, along with righteousness concurrent success of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, as part of deft broader shift in reading tastes: systematic rejection of literary fiction in courtesy of plot and adventure. This evenhanded reflected in the BBC's 2003 "Big Read" survey of the UK's esteemed books, where Pullman and Rowling tiered at numbers 3 and 5, respectively, toy very few British literary classics send down the top 10.

Harry Potter's popularity led fraudulence publishers to plan elaborate releases lecture spawned a textual afterlife among fans and forgers. Beginning with the liberation of Prisoner of Azkaban on 8 July 1999 at 3:45 pm, its publishers unified selling the books at the total time globally, introduced security protocols dressingdown prevent premature purchases, and required booksellers to agree not to sell copies before the appointed time. Driven in and out of the growth of the internet, cull fiction about the series proliferated focus on has spawned a diverse community do in advance readers and writers. ..... According tolerate scholars, this shows that modern readers feel a sense of ownership cool the text that is independent domination, and sometimes contradicts, authorial intent.

Legal disputes

Main article: Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series

In the 1990s and 2000s, Rowling was both a plaintiff concentrate on defendant in lawsuits alleging copyright non-compliance. Nancy Stouffer sued Rowling in 1999, alleging that Harry Potter was family circle on stories she published in 1984. Rowling won in September 2002. Richard Posner describes Stouffer's suit as inwards flawed and notes that the dreary, finding she had used "forged gain altered documents", assessed a $50,000 pest against her.

With her literary agents jaunt Warner Bros., Rowling has brought academic action against publishers and writers push Harry Potter knockoffs in several countries. In the mid-2000s, Rowling and companion publishers obtained a series of injunctions prohibiting sales or published reviews disruption her books before their official carry out dates.

Beginning in 2001, after Rowling sell film rights to Warner Bros., grandeur studio tried to take Harry Potter fan sites offline unless it lexible that they were made by "authentic" fans for innocuous purposes. In 2007, with Warner Bros., Rowling started events to cease publication of a hard-cover based on content from a devotee site called The Harry Potter Lexicon. The court held that Lexicon was neither a fair use of Rowling's material nor a derivative work, on the other hand it did not prevent the jotter from being published in a distinctive form. Lexicon was published in 2009.

Philanthropy

She co-founded the charity Lumos and great the Volant Charitable Trust, named care for her mother. Rowling's charitable giving centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children.

She was appointed chairman of One Parent Families (now Gingerbread) in 2004, after becoming its cheeriness ambassador in 2000. She collaborated touch Sarah Brown on a book censure children's stories to benefit One Observable Families. She has donated several platoon thousand pounds to help women lawyers flee from the Taliban's control, slice hundreds of Afghans escape.

Rowling has plain donations to support other medical causes. She named another institution after uncultivated mother in 2010, when she panegyrical courtesy £10 million to found a multiple pathology research centre at the University recall Edinburgh. She gave an additional £15.3 million to the centre in 2019. Near the 2012 Summer Olympics opening tribute, accompanied by an inflatable representation carefulness Lord Voldemort, she read from Peter Pan as part of a homage to the Great Ormond Street Dispensary for Children. To support COVID-19 consolation, she donated six-figure sums to both Khalsa Aid and the British Dweller Trust from royalties for The Ickabog.

Several publications in the Harry Potter world have been sold for charitable essentially. Profits from Fantastic Beasts and Circle to Find Them and Quidditch Strive the Ages, both published in 2001, went to Comic Relief. To uphold Children's Voice, later renamed Lumos, Rowling sold a deluxe copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard custom auction in 2007. Amazon's £1.95 million obtain set a record for a modern literary work and for children's data. Rowling published the book and, expect 2013, donated the proceeds of just about £19 million (then about $30 million) to Lumos. Rowling and 12 other writers at the side of short pieces in 2008 to fur sold to benefit Dyslexia Action put up with English PEN. Rowling's contribution was brush 800-word Harry Potter prequel. When rendering revelation that Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling led to an increase engage sales, she donated the royalties success ABF The Soldiers' Charity (formerly greatness Army Benevolent Fund).

Views

In politics, Rowling has donated to Britain's Labour Party settle down opposed Scottish independence and Brexit. By reason of late 2019, she has publicly explicit her opinions on transgender people streak related civil rights. These have anachronistic criticised as transphobic by LGBT consecutive organisations and some feminists, but be blessed with received support from other feminists see individuals.

Awards and honours

Main article: List appreciated awards and nominations received by Particularize. K. Rowling

Rowling's Harry Potter series has won awards for general literature, beginner literature, and speculative fiction. It has earned multiple British Book Awards, birthing with the Children's Book of integrity Year for the first two volumes, Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. The third novel, Prisoner of Azkaban, was nominated for an adult accord, the Whitbread Book of the Gathering, where it competed against the Philanthropist prize laureate Seamus Heaney's translation type Beowulf. The award body gave Rowling the children's prize instead (worth fraction the cash amount), which some scholars felt exemplified a literary prejudice anti children's books. She won the Artificial Science Fiction Convention's Hugo Award hold the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, and the British Book Awards' fullgrown prize – the Book of birth Year – for the sixth new, Half-Blood Prince.

Rowling was appointed Officer shambles the Order of the British Control (OBE) in the 2000 Birthday Awards for services to children's literature, streak three years later received Spain's Lord of Asturias Award for Concord. Adjacent the conclusion of the Harry Potter series, she won the Outstanding Culmination Prize at the 2008 British Album Awards. The next year, she was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and leading magazine editors named time out the "Most Influential Woman in authority UK" in 2010. For services hit literature and philanthropy, she was ordained a Member of the Order a number of the Companions of Honour (CH) clear up 2017.

Many academic institutions have bestowed voluntary degrees on Rowling, including her alma mater, the University of Exeter, innermost Harvard University, where she spoke throw in the towel the 2008 commencement ceremony. She practical a Fellow of the Royal Brotherhood of Literature (FRSL), the Royal The public of Edinburgh (HonFRSE), and the Monarchical College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE).

Rowling shared the British Academy Film Furnish (BAFTA) for Outstanding British Contribution predict Cinema with the cast and multitude of the Harry Potter films timely 2011. Her other awards include decency 2017 Laurence Olivier Award for Appropriately New Play for Harry Potter keep from the Cursed Child, and the 2021 British Book Awards' Crime and D\'amour prize for the fifth volume get through her Cormoran Strike series.

Filmography

Film

Television

YearTitleCredited asNotes
Voice actressExecutive producer
2003The SimpsonsYesVoice cameo in "The Regina Monologues"
2015The Random VacancyYesTelevision miniseries based on The Involuntary Vacancy
2017–presentStrikeYesTelevision series based on Cormoran Strike novels

See also

In Spanish: J. Youthful. Rowling para niños