Joanne Rowling, or J K Rowling as she is known, was born on July 31, 1965 in Yate, England. She is the self-made billionaire author of the most successful book series in history – Harry Potter. Her books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 80 different languages, enthralling young readers in more than 200 countries for the past 24 years.
Rowling did her early schooling from St Michael’s primary school and earned a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. She later moved to Portugal in 1990 to teach English.
Here she married a Portuguese journalist, Jorge Arantes and had a daughter in 1993. After the marriage ended in divorce, Rowling moved to Scotland, where she struggled to support her daughter Jessica and herself.
The idea for Harry Potter occurred to her while she was travelling on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. Once the first book, ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ was finished, it was rejected by 12 publishing houses before Bloomsbury finally accepted it.
Rowling has written companion books to the Potter series such as ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ and stand-alone novels such as ‘The Casual Vacancy’ and ‘The Ickabog’. Her latest book, ‘The Christmas Pig’ was published in October, 2021. Rowling also writes crime fiction under the pen name of ‘Robert Galbraith’. Her ‘Cormoran Strike’ series consists of ‘The Silkworm’ which appeared in June 2014, followed by ‘Career of Evil’ in October 2015 and ‘Lethal White’ in September 2018.
She is credited for fostering a culture of reading in millions of children around the world and is undoubtedly one of the greatest authors in modern history.
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