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JK Rowling biography. "Harry Potter" by JK Rowling: amazing facts and places of worship

JK Rowling (known by her pen names J.K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith) – British writer, screenwriter and film producer - born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Wolan ) July 31, 1965 in Yate in Gloucestershire (England) 16 kilometers northeast of Bristol.

Her mother Anne was half French and half Scottish. Rowling's parents met in 1964 at London's King's Cross station on a train bound for Arbroath. They married on March 14, 1965.

Rowling's sister, Dianne, was born when Joan was 23 months old. When Joan was four years old, the family moved to the neighboring village of Winterbourne. Rowling attended St. Michael's Primary School, founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. It has been suggested that the school's headmaster, Alfred Dunn, was the inspiration for Harry Potter's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.[

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she usually read to her sister. At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the village of Tutshill (Gloucestershire), near Chepstow (Wales). When she was a teenager, her great-aunt gave her a very old edition of Jessica Mitford's autobiography. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and she read all of her books.

Rowling attended Waideen High School, where her mother worked in the science department. In 1982 Rowling failed the entrance exams to Oxford University and entered the University of Exeter, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in French and classical philology. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986. She listens to pop music and is keen on the singer Siouxsie, whose views she adopted for several years, and moved to London, starting work as a secretary in the research department of Amnesty International.

After leaving her job at Amnesty International in London, Rowling and her boyfriend decided to move to Manchester. In 1990 While traveling on a four-hour delayed train from Manchester to London, the idea for a novel about a boy attending a wizarding school "came fully formed" into her mind.

When she got home, she immediately began writing. In December of the same year, Rowling's mother died after ten years of multiple sclerosis. Rowling said the death had a profound impact on her novel, and she wrote more about the loss of Harry's parents in the first book because she knew the feeling.

After seeing an ad in The Guardian, Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, to teach English. She taught in the evenings and wrote during the day while listening to Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. In Portugal, Rowling met TV journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar. They merried October 16, 1992, and they have July 27, 1993 daughter Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (in honor of Jessica Mitford) was born. The couple broke up November 17, 1993, 13 months and one day after the wedding. In December 1993 Rowling, with her daughter and three chapters of Harry Potter in her suitcase, moved to Edinburgh (Scotland) to be near her sister.

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling considered herself "the biggest failure I knew." Her marriage broke up, she was unemployed and with a child in her arms. However, she later described her failure as liberating.

During this period, Rowling fell ill with clinical depression and had thoughts of suicide. It was this condition that led to the appearance of dementors in her third book - creatures that suck out the soul. Rowling began receiving social benefits. She was, she said, "as poor as you can be in modern Britain without being homeless."

Rowling was left "desperate" after her husband arrived looking for her and his daughter. She received a protection order and Arantes returned to Portugal, while Rowling in August 1994. After finishing his first novel in August 1995 she entered teacher training school Edinburgh University, while living on benefits.

In 1995 Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which she typed on an old typewriter. Following a rave review from Briony Ivens, a reader asked to rate the book's first three chapters, Fulham-based literary agents Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her search for a publisher. The book was sent to twelve publishing houses, but all of them rejected the manuscript. A year later, she finally got the green light (and a £1,500 advance) from editor Barry Cunningham of London publisher Bloomsbury. Rowling's decision to publish the book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury, whose father gave the first chapter to read and who immediately demanded a sequel. Cunningham said that although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, he advised Rowling to find a day job as she had little chance of making money from children's books. Soon after it, in 1997, Rowling received an £8,000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to continue her writing.

In June 1997 Bloomsbury published The Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. Five months later, the book won its first award, the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February the novel won the British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year and later the Children's Book Award. Early 1998 In the United States, an auction was held for the rights to publish the novel, which was won by Scholastic Inc. for 105 thousand dollars. In October 1998 Scholastic published The Philosopher's Stone in the US under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, reasoning that children would not want to read a book with the word "philosopher" in the title.

The sequel to the first novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, has been published in July 1998. Rowling again received a Smarties Award for it. In December 1999 The third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was released, which also won the Smarties Award, after which Rowling became the first person to win this award three times in a row. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from the competition to give other books a chance. In January 2000 The Prisoner of Azkaban won the Whitbread Awards for children's book of the year, although it lost out for book of the year to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and US July 8, 2000 and broke sales records in both countries. The book sold 372,775 copies in the UK on its first day - almost the same number of copies of the previous novel sold in its first year. In the United States, the book sold three million copies in the first 48 hours, breaking all sales records. Rowling won the British Book Awards for author of the year.

Three years passed between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. During this hiatus, the press published rumors that Rowling was experiencing writer's block, which she vehemently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing this book required a lot of effort from her.

The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, has been released July 16, 2005. It also broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in the first 24 hours. In 2006 The Half-Blood Prince won the British Book Awards for Book of the Year.

At the end of December 2006 The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book has been announced: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been released July 21, 2007 and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the UK and US on its first day.

In June 2011, Rowling announced that all Harry Potter-related material would be collected in a new web project, Pottermore. The project website provides 18 thousand words of additional information about the characters, places and objects of the Harry Potter universe. In April 2012 After the launch of the site, Rowling confirmed that she had begun work on an encyclopedia about the Harry Potter universe and would donate all royalties to charity. She later noted that she likes to share for free new information about Potter on Pottermore and she has no plans to publish it as a book. IN 2014 Rowling published several fragments of her future book, “The Story of the Quidditch World Cup,” on her website. The first came out in March, the second in July.

In 2016, 9 years after the release of the seventh book, the series received an unexpected continuation in the form of a two-part play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which begins immediately after the epilogue of The Deathly Hallows. The play was produced in the West End and was written by playwright Jack Thorne, but with creative input from Rowling. In parallel with the premiere, a book with the script appeared in bookstores, which was officially recognized as the eighth part of the series. The play was very well received positive reviews fans and critics and subsequently received a record 9 Laurence Olivier Awards (with also a record 11 nominations), including Best New Play and best actor.

December 26, 2001 Rowling married anesthesiologist Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971). The private ceremony took place at Killiechassie House in Scotland. This was the second marriage for both Rowling and Murray. March 24, 2003 They had a son, David Gordon Rowling Murray. Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she took a break to care for her child. Rowling's youngest daughter, Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Half-Blood Prince, was born January 23, 2005. The family lives in Edinburgh near writers Iain Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and Kate Atkinson.

In 2000 Rowling created charitable foundation Volant Charitable Trust, which aims to fight poverty and social inequality. The foundation funds organizations that help children, single-parent families, and also engage in research into multiple sclerosis.

Rowling, who herself was a single mother, heads the charity Gingerbread (formerly known as One Parent Families), having previously been the organization's first ambassador since 2000. Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to raise funds for One Parent Families.

In 2005 Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children’s High Level Group (now Lumos).

Rowling financially supported research and treatment for multiple sclerosis, which her mother suffered from until her death in 1990. In 2006 Rowling donated a significant sum to establish the new Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, later renamed the Anne Rowling Clinic for Regenerative Neuroscience. In 2010 In 2018, she donated another £10 million to the clinic.

Works:

Harry Potter series:
"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" ( 1997 )
"Harry Potter And The Chamber of secrets" ( 1998 )
"Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban" ( 1999 )
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" ( 2000 )
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" ( 2003 )
"Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince" ( 2005 )
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" ( 2007 )
"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" ( 2016 )

Supplements to the Harry Potter series:
"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" ( 2001 )
"Quidditch from Antiquity to the Present Day" ( 2001 )
"Tales of Beedle the Bard" ( 2008 )
"Harry Potter: The Backstory" ( 2008 )
"Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide" ( 2016 )
"Short Stories from Hogwarts about Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists" ( 2016 )
"Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies" ( 2016 )

Film scripts:
"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" ( 2016 )
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ( 2018 )

Books for adults:
"Random Vacancy" ( 2012 )
Cormoran Strike series
"The Cuckoo's Calling" (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) ( 2013 )
"Silkworm" (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) ( 2014 )
"In the Service of Evil" (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) ( 2015 )

Journalism:
Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and Importance of Imagination ( 2016

Keywords: Joanne Rowling, Joanne Rowling, fantasy, biography of Joanne Rowling, download detailed biography, free download, English literature, 20th century, early 21st century, life and work of JK Rowling

Joanne Rowling

Joanne Rowling. Born July 31, 1965. Known under the pseudonyms J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, she is a British novelist, screenwriter and film producer, best known as the author of the Harry Potter series of novels.

The Potter books have won several awards and have sold over 400 million copies. They became the best-selling book series in history and the basis for a film series that became the second highest-grossing film series in history. Rowling herself approved the film scripts, and also became one of the producers of the last two parts.

Rowling was working as a research assistant and translator for Amnesty International when she came up with the idea for a Harry Potter novel while traveling by train from Manchester to London in 1990. Over the next seven years, Rowling's mother died, she divorced her first husband and lived in poverty until she published the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997). She subsequently wrote 6 sequels - the last being Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007) - as well as 3 additions to the series. After this, Rowling parted ways with her agency and began writing for adult readers, releasing the tragicomedy The Casual Vacancy (2012) and - under a pseudonym "Robert Galbraith"- crime novels “The Cuckoo’s Calling” (2013) and “The Silkworm” (2014).

In five years, Rowling went from living on welfare to becoming a multimillionaire. She is the UK's best-selling author, with sales of over £238 million.

In 2008, the Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's wealth at £560 million, placing her as the 12th richest woman in Britain.

Forbes in 2007 ranked Rowling as the 48th most influential celebrity, and Time magazine in 2007 gave her second place as Person of the Year, noting the social, moral and political inspiration she provided to her fans.

In October 2010, Rowling was named "the most powerful woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors. She has become a prominent philanthropist, supporting organizations such as Laughter Release, Gingerbread, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Lumos (formerly Children's High Level Group).

Although the writer's books are published under a pseudonym "J. K. Rowling" When the first Harry Potter book was published, her name was simply JK Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers suggested that she use two initials rather than her own. full name. Since she did not have a middle name, she chose the middle initial K for her pseudonym - after her paternal grandmother. She calls herself "Jo" and says, "No one ever called me 'Joan' when I was young unless they were mad at me." After her marriage, she sometimes used the name Joanne Murray in personal matters. During the News International investigation, she testified under the name Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Wolan) on July 31, 1965, in Yate in Gloucestershire, England, 16 kilometers northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half French and half Scottish. Rowling's parents met in 1964 at London's King's Cross station on a train bound for Arbroath. They married on March 14, 1965.

Joan's great-grandfather, Dugald Campbell (her mother's maternal grandfather), was born in the village of Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Louis Volant, her other great-grandfather - also her mother's grandfather, but on her father's side - was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.

Rowling's sister, Dianne, was born in their home when Joan was 23 months old. When Joan was four years old, the family moved to the neighboring village of Winterbourne. Rowling attended St. Michael's Primary School, founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. It has been suggested that the school's headmaster, Alfred Dunn, was the inspiration for Harry Potter's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she usually read to her sister.

She recalled: “I still remember telling her a story where she fell down a rabbit hole and a family of rabbits fed her strawberries. It is absolutely certain that the first story I wrote down (when I was about five or six years old) was about a rabbit named Rabbit. He got measles and his friends came to see him, including a giant bee named Miss Bee.".

At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the village of Tutshill (Gloucestershire), near Chepstow (Wales). When she was a teenager, her great-aunt (of whom Rowling said: "Taught me classical philology and instilled in me a thirst for knowledge, even of the dubious kind") gave her a very old edition of Jessica Mitford's autobiography. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and she read all of her books.

About yours adolescence Rowling said in an interview with The New Yorker: “I wasn't particularly happy. I think this is a terrible time to be alive.".

She had a difficult time home life- her mother was ill, and Rowling had a difficult relationship with her father (she no longer speaks to him).

Rowling attended Waideen High School, where her mother worked in the science department. As Rowling said: “Hermione [the Harry Potter character with a know-it-all personality] is basically based on me. She's a caricature of eleven-year-old me, which I'm not particularly proud of.".

Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English, recalled her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright and quite good at English."

Regarding her musical tastes at that time, she said: “My favorite band in the world was The Smiths. And when I was going through my punk phase, it was The Clash.". Rowling was head girl at school. Before entering university, she studied English, French and German, passing exams with two excellent marks and one good.

In 1982, Rowling failed the entrance exams to Oxford University and entered the University of Exeter, where she graduated with a BA in French and Classics. Martin Sorrell, then a professor of French at the university, remembered her as "a quiet, competent student in denim jacket and with dark hair, who, from an academic point of view, looked like she was doing what was needed.".

In her own words, she “didn’t do any work at all”, but instead “I used heavy eyeliner, listened to The Smiths and read Dickens and Tolkien”. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986 and moved to London, starting work as a secretary in the research department of Amnesty International.

After leaving her job at Amnesty International in London, Rowling and her boyfriend decided to move to Manchester. In 1990, while on a train from Manchester to London that was delayed for four hours, the idea for a novel about a boy attending a wizarding school “came fully formed” into her mind. She said in an interview with The Boston Globe: “I don't really know where this idea came from. It started with Harry, and then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head.".

Rowling described the origins of the Harry Potter concept on her website: "I was traveling back to London alone on a crowded train and the idea of Harry Potter just popped into my head. I'd been writing almost continuously since I was six years old, but I'd never been so excited by an idea before. Much to my disappointment, I didn't have a writing pen and I was too shy to ask someone to borrow... I didn't have a work pen with me, but I think it was probably a good thing. I just sat and thought for four hours (train delays) while everyone details were bubbling in my brain, and this skinny black-haired boy with glasses who didn't know he was a wizard was becoming more and more real to me. Maybe if I slowed down the train of thoughts to commit them to paper, I would suppress some of them (though sometimes I wonder how much of what I imagined then I had forgotten by the time I found myself with a pen.) I started writing Philosopher's Stone that same evening, although those first few pages don't have nothing to do with the finished book".

When she got home, she immediately began writing. In December of the same year, Rowling's mother died after ten years of multiple sclerosis. Joan recalled: “I was writing Harry Potter when my mother died. I never told her about Harry Potter.". Rowling said the death had a profound impact on her novel, and she wrote more about the loss of Harry's parents in the first book because she knew the feeling.

Rowling previously suffered a miscarriage. The couple separated on November 17, 1993, 13 months and one day after their wedding. Rowling's biographers have suggested that she suffered from domestic violence while married, but the full extent of this is unknown. In an interview with The Daily Express, Arantes said that after their last night together, he kicked her out of the house at five in the morning and hit her hard.

In December 1993, Rowling moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, with her daughter and three chapters of Harry Potter in her suitcase, to be near her sister.

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling considered herself "The biggest loser I've ever known". Her marriage broke up, she was unemployed and with a child in her arms.

During this period, Rowling fell ill with clinical depression and had thoughts of suicide. It was this condition that led to the appearance of dementors in her third book - creatures that suck out the soul. Rowling began receiving social benefits. According to her, she was "as poor as one can get in modern Britain without being homeless".

Rowling was left "desperate" after her husband arrived looking for her and his daughter. She received a protection order and Arantes returned to Portugal, while Rowling filed for divorce in August 1994.

After completing her first novel in August 1995, she entered the University of Edinburgh's School of Education while living on benefits. She wrote in numerous cafes, especially Nicolson's and The Elephant House (the latter formerly owned by her son-in-law Roger Moore).

In a 2001 interview with the BBC, Rowling denied rumors that she wrote in local cafes because her apartment had no heating, noting: "I'm not stupid enough to rent an unheated apartment in Edinburgh in the middle of winter." . As she stated on the American television program A&E Biography, one of the reasons why she wrote in a cafe was that her daughter fell asleep best when walking.

Harry Potter

In 1995, Rowling completed her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which she typed on an old typewriter.

Following a rave review from Briony Ivens, a reader asked to rate the book's first three chapters, Fulham-based literary agents Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her search for a publisher.

The book was sent to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.

A year later, she finally got the green light (and a £1,500 advance) from editor Barry Cunningham of London publisher Bloomsbury. Rowling's decision to publish the book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury, whose father gave the first chapter to read and who immediately demanded a sequel.

Cunningham said that although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, he advised Rowling to find a day job as she had little chance of making money from children's books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8,000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to continue writing.

Five months later, the book won its first award, the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year, and later the Children's Book Award.

In early 1998, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, which was won by Scholastic Inc. for 105 thousand dollars. Rowling said she “almost died” when she found out.

In October 1998, Scholastic published The Philosopher's Stone in the United States under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, reasoning that children would not want to read a book with the word "philosopher" in the title. Rowling later stated that she regretted the title change and would not have agreed to it if she had been in a better position at the time. After receiving money from Scholastic, Rowling moved from her apartment to 19 Hazelbank Terrace in Edinburgh.

Sequel to the first novel "Harry Potter And The Chamber of secrets", was published in July 1998. Rowling again received a Smarties Award for it.

The third novel was published in December 1999. "Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban", which also won the Smarties Award, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times in a row. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from the competition to give other books a chance.

In January 2000, The Prisoner of Azkaban won the Whitbread Awards for children's book of the year, although it lost out for book of the year to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and US on July 8, 2000, and broke sales records in both countries.

The book sold 372,775 copies in the UK on its first day - almost the same number of copies of the previous novel sold in its first year. In the United States, the book sold three million copies in the first 48 hours, breaking all sales records. Rowling admitted that she had a moment of crisis while writing the novel: “Halfway through writing the fourth book, I discovered a serious error in the plot... Some of my darkest moments are associated with this book... I rewrote one chapter 13 times, although no one who read it will be able to notice which one, or understand the pain she caused me". Rowling won the British Book Awards for author of the year.

The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on July 16, 2005. It also broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in the first 24 hours.

Before the book's release, in response to a letter from a fan, Rowling wrote: “Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing in earnest, I spent two months revising the plan to make sure I was absolutely sure of what I was doing.”. She noted on her website that the first chapter of the sixth book, which describes a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, was first intended to be the first chapter of The Philosopher's Stone, then The Chamber of Secrets, then The Prisoner of Azkaban.

In 2006, The Half-Blood Prince won the British Book Awards for Book of the Year.

At the end of December 2006, the title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was announced - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

In February 2007, it was revealed that Rowling had written on a bust in her hotel room at The Balmoral in Edinburgh that she had completed the seventh book in that room on 11 January 2007.

Novel "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" was released on July 21, 2007 and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the UK and US on its first day. Rowling wrote the last chapter of the book "sometime in 1990."

While she was still working on her last book, she appeared in the documentary J K Rowling... A Year In The Life", which was shown in the UK on ITV on December 30, 2007. In it, Rowling visited her old apartment in Edinburgh, where she finished her first Harry Potter book. Returning to this apartment for the first time, she was moved to tears, saying that “This is where I really turned my life around”.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling gave credit to her mother for the success of the book series, saying: “The books are what they are because she died... because I loved her and she died.”. Currently, Harry Potter is a global brand valued at $15 billion. The last four Harry Potter books have consistently set records as the best-selling books in history. The book series, totaling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages. The Harry Potter books were also credited with sparking an interest in reading among young people at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books in favor of computers and television.

In April 2012, following the launch of the site, Rowling confirmed that she had begun work on an encyclopedia about the Harry Potter universe and would donate all royalties to charity. She later noted that she enjoys sharing new Potter information for free on Pottermore and has no plans to publish it as a book.

Harry Potter films

In October 1998, Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to the first two novels for a seven-figure sum. The film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was released on November 16, 2001, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released on November 15, 2002. Both films were directed by Chris Columbus.

On June 4, 2004, the film “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” directed by Alfonso Cuaron was released. The fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by Mike Newell and released on November 18, 2005. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released on July 11, 2007.

It was directed by David Yates and written by Michael Goldenberg, who replaced Steve Kloves. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released on July 15, 2009. The director was again directed by David Yates, and Kloves returned as screenwriter.

In March 2008, Warner Bros. announced that the final part of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be filmed in two parts. The first part was released in November 2010, and the second in July 2011. Yates directed both parts.

Warner Bros. largely took into account Rowling's wishes and ideas. One of its main conditions was that films should be shot in Britain and with British actors. In an unprecedented move, Rowling also stipulated that Coca-Cola, which won the competition to sponsor the film series, donate $18 million to the American charity Reading is Fundamental and a number of other programs.

The scripts for the first four, sixth and seventh films were written by Steve Kloves. Rowling worked with him to ensure that his scripts did not conflict with future books in the series. She said she told him more about her next books than anyone else (prior to their release), but not everything.

She also told (Severus Snape) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) some secrets about their characters before they were revealed in the books. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) asked her if his character would die at some point. Rowling said he would have a death scene, clearly not answering the question.

The director of the first film could have been. The press has repeatedly claimed that Rowling played a role in preventing this from happening, but Rowling responded that she had no say in the choice of director and would not have vetoed Spielberg if she had. Rowling's first choice to direct was Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, as she is a fan of his work, but Warner Bros. wanted more Family Film and chose Columbus.

Rowling was also given creative control over the films, reviewing all scripts and serving as one of the producers on the final two installments. Along with producers David Heyman and David Barron, directors David Yates, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuaron, Rowling received the 2011 British Academy Film Awards for Outstanding British Contribution to Film for the Harry Potter series.

In September 2013, Warner Bros. announced the expansion of its creative collaboration with Rowling and the beginning of work on a series of films about Newt Scamander, the fictional author of the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The script for the first film will be written by Rowling herself and will take place approximately 70 years before the events of the main series.

In 2004, Forbes named Rowling the first person to become dollar billionaire through writing books, as well as the second richest woman from the entertainment industry and the 1062nd richest person in the world. Rowling denied the magazine's calculations, saying that she has a lot of money, but she is not a billionaire.

In 2008, the Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain.

In 2012, Forbes did not include Rowling in its ranking of the richest people., saying she lost her billionaire status due to charitable donations of more than $160 million and high tax rates in the UK.

In February 2013, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour named Rowling the 13th most powerful woman in the country.

In 2001, Rowling purchased a 19th-century manor house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a Georgian house in Kensington, west London, worth £4.5 million and located on a street with 24-hour security.

Rowling married anesthesiologist Neil Michael Murray on December 26, 2001.(born June 30, 1971). The private ceremony took place at Killiechassie House in Scotland. This was the second marriage for both Rowling and Murray. On March 24, 2003, their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born. Shortly after Rowling began writing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she took a break to care for her child. Rowling's youngest daughter, Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, to whom she dedicated Half-Blood Prince, was born on January 23, 2005. The family lives in Edinburgh near writers Iain Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and Kate Atkinson.

In July 2011, Rowling parted ways with her literary agent Christopher Little and moved to a new agency founded by one of his employees, Neil Blair, noting that it was a difficult decision.

On February 23, 2012, Rowling's new agency, Blair Partnership, announced on its website that Rowling would be publishing new book oriented towards adults. In a press release, Rowling noted the differences between her new project and the Potter series, saying: “While I enjoyed writing the Harry Potter series just as much, my next novel will be very different.”.

On April 12, 2012, Little, Brown and Company announced that the book would be titled "Random Vacancy" and will be released on September 27, 2012. Rowling has given several interviews and appearances to promote the book, including appearances at London's Southbank Centre, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, The Charlie Rose Show and the Lennoxlove Book Festival. In the first three weeks of its release, The Casual Vacancy sold more than a million copies worldwide.

On 3 December 2012, it was announced that the BBC would be adapting The Casual Vacancy as a series for BBC One. Rowling's agent Neil Blair will produce and Rick Senate will executive produce. Rowling is also heavily involved in the adaptation process.

Rowling has often talked about writing a crime novel over the years. In 2007, at the Edinburgh Book Festival, author Ian Rankin said that his wife noticed Rowling “writing” a detective story in a cafe. Rankin later said it was a joke, but the rumor persisted and The Guardian suggested in 2012 that next book Rowling will be a crime novel.

In an interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling said she would like to write subsequent books under a pseudonym, but admitted back in 2003 that the press "would have found out about it in a matter of seconds." In an interview with The New Yorker in 2012, Rowling stated that she was working on a new adult novel and that although she had only written "a couple of chapters", the plot was "pretty well constructed".

In April 2013, Little Brown published "The Cuckoo's Calling", the debut novel by author Robert Galbraith, whom the publisher described as "a former civilian investigator military police, who went to work in the field of civil security in 2003.” The mystery novel, in which private investigator Cormoran Strike unravels the apparent suicide of a supermodel, sold 1,500 hardcover copies and received positive reviews from other crime writers and critics. Publisher's Weekly called the book a "stellar debut" and Library Journal called it "debut of the month."

After the authorship of The Cuckoo's Calling became public, Rowling wrote on her website: “I just finished the sequel and we expect it to be published in next year» . The second novel about Cormoran Strike, called "Silkworm" was released in June 2014, in which Strike investigates the disappearance of a writer hated by many of his old friends for insulting them in his new novel.

Harry Potter Series:

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

Supplements to the Harry Potter series:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001)
"Quidditch from Antiquity to the Present" (2001)
"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" (2008)
"Harry Potter: The Backstory" (2008)

Books for adults:

"Casual Vacancy" (2012)

Cormoran Strike series:

"The Cuckoo's Calling" (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) (2013)
"The Silkworm" (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) (2014)
"Career of Evil" (under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) (2015)

Articles:

McNeil, Gil and Brown, Sarah, editors (2002). Preface to the Magic Anthology. Bloomsbury.
Brown, Gordon (2006). Introduction to 'Ending Child Poverty' in Moving Britain Forward. Selected Speeches 1997-2006. Bloomsbury.
Sussman, Peter Y., editor (2006, July 26). "The First It Girl: J.K. Rowling reviews Decca: the Letters of Jessica Mitford. The Daily Telegraph.
Anelli, Melissa (2008). Foreword to Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon. Pocket Books.
Rowling, J.K. (2008, June 5). "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination." Harvard Magazine.
Rowling, J.K. (2009, April 30). "Gordon Brown - The 2009 Time 100". Time Magazine.
Rowling, J.K. (2010, April 14). "The Single Mother's Manifesto". The Times.
Rowling, J.K. (2012, November 30). "I feel duped and angry at David Cameron's reaction to Leveson." The Guardian.

Filmography of JK Rowling:

2010 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Part 1 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I) - producer
2011 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Part 2 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II) - producer
2015 - The Casual Vacancy - executive producer
2016 - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - screenwriter, producer.

After leaving school, Rowling tried to enter Oxford, but ended up becoming a philology student at the University of Exeter. In addition to French, Rowling studied ancient Greek and Roman literature at the university.

After graduating from university, Rowling moved to London, where she changed several jobs, including a position at Amnesty International, a human rights organization.

While traveling from Manchester to London on a crowded train, Rowling conceived the idea for a novel about a black-haired, bespectacled boy who was unaware of his magical powers. She started work in the evening of the same day, having reached home. After the death of her mother in December 1990, the main character of her future novel was an orphan boy grieving for his dead parents.

In the early 1990s, Rowling lived in Portugal, where she taught English as a foreign language. In 1993 she moved to Edinburgh.

In 1995, the writer sent the first chapters of the book to several literary agents. In 1997, the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was first published by Bloomsbury. The publisher suggested that the writer print her initials on the cover instead of her full name, citing the fact that boys would not want to buy a book written by a woman. Since Rowling did not have a middle name, she chose the letter "K" as her initial, in honor of her grandmother Kathleen - "J. K. Rowling". The book gained popularity among the public.

In 1999, the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was published.

The fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was published on July 8, 2000, with a UK record edition of one million copies.

The next Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was published in 2003, followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in 2005.

The last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published in 2007.

Interest in Harry Potter and income from book sales increased with each new novel. Rowling's works have been translated into 67 languages.

In December 2007, the collection “Tales of Beedle the Bard” was published, which was also mentioned in the last book about Harry Potter, and the text of one of the tales is given in full in the novel.

Rowling's first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, was published in the UK in September 2012.

Under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the writer published two detective novels, The Cuckoo's Calling (2013) and The Silkworm (2014).

The writer also announced that she had already written half of her third crime novel and had begun work on the plot of the fourth. It is planned that books related common hero- Detective Cormoran Strike, it will be more than seven.

Rowling is the screenwriter of a number of films about Harry Potter - "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (2001), "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004), "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" ( 2005), "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007), "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2009).

In two parts of the film "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", released in 2010 and 2011, she is also a producer.

JK Rowling has various charitable organizations: the Single Parents Foundation, the Multiple Sclerosis Research Foundation and others. She is the founder of the charity Lumos, which defends the rights of mentally retarded children in poor European countries.

In 2012, she gave a short speech at the opening ceremony of the XXX Summer Olympic Games in London.

Rowling is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 2001 she was awarded the Order of the British Empire, in 2009 - the Order of the Legion of Honor (France). Her awards include the Hugo Award (2001), the Prince of Asturias Award (Spain, 2003), the W.G. Literary Award. Smith (2004), Edinburgh Prize (2008), Hans Christian Andersen Prize (Denmark, 2010), etc. Rowling was awarded the British Book Award several times (1998, 1999, 2000, 2006, 2008).

In 2001, JK Rowling married anesthesiologist Neil Murray. In 2003, the couple had a son, David, and a daughter, Mackenzie, in 2005. She also has a daughter from her first marriage, Jessica (born in 1993). The writer took her husband’s surname, but publishes books under her former name, which is more familiar to readers.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Joanne Rowling is a British novelist, screenwriter and film producer, best known as the author of the Harry Potter series of novels.

Born July 31, 1965 in the town of Yate (Gloucestershire). In addition to Joan, the family included younger sister- Dianna. When the future writer was 4 years old, her family moved to Winterbourne, where she and her sister often played with children named Potter. Joan attended St Michael's Primary School, founded 200 years ago by British philanthropist William Wilberforce. It is believed that the director of this school, Alfred Dunn, became the prototype of the director of the school where Harry Potter studied.

Joan loved telling stories since childhood. She wrote her first fairy tale at the age of 5-6 years. When she turned 9, her family moved to Tutshill. It was a difficult period: Joan's mother was often ill, and her relationship with her father did not work out. The girl attended Vaidin High School, where her mother worked. The writer's favorite subjects were English and other foreign languages. She loved to tell her friends stories about heroic characters. Immediately after leaving school, she entered the University of Exeter, where she studied French. After graduating, she moved to London, where she worked briefly as a secretary-translator.

In 1990 she moved to Manchester. Joan's mother, who had long suffered from multiple sclerosis, died in the same place. Soon the future writer moved to Portugal, where she taught English. In between lessons, she wrote her novel about a boy who studied at a magic school and was distinguished by his extraordinary abilities. In 1992, she married a young journalist. A year later, the couple had a daughter, but they divorced. Joan and her little daughter moved to Edinburgh, closer to her sister. She received a grant from the Scottish Arts Council to complete her book. When the time came to publish her work, Joan faced many rejections. Eventually, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was purchased by Bloomsbury.

After publication in the UK, Joan was talked about as a writer, and the book about Harry Potter won the Book of the Year award. When the rights to the book were bought by the publishing house Arthur A. Levin/Educational Literature for a significant sum, the writer was able to quit teaching and devote herself entirely to writing. All subsequent books in the Harry Potter series became bestsellers in both the UK and the USA. The first Harry Potter film was produced in 2000 by Warner Brothers. There were eight film adaptations in total, and all of them occupied leading positions. Today, the stories of Harry Potter and his fight against the Dark Lord have become some of the most popular children's books in the world.

(J. K. Rowling), - British writer.

Nicknames: J. K. Rowling, Newt Scamander, Kennilworthy Wisp, Robert Galbraith.

JK Rowling was born in the town of Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, near Bristol, and became the eldest of two daughters in the family. When the future writer was nine years old, the Rowlings moved to the town of Chepstow in the county of Gwent (Wales). Upon completion of the high school In 1983, Rowling entered the University of Exeter, where she studied French. This gave her the opportunity to spend a year in Paris.
After graduating from university, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, Rowling moved to London, where she changed several jobs. She spent most of her time with the international human rights organization Amnesty International. In 1990, the future writer moved to Manchester, and that’s when she first came up with the idea of a children’s book about a boy wizard. Also in 1990, Rowling's mother died of multiple sclerosis. A few months later Joan got a teaching position in English in Porto, the second largest city in Portugal.
In Porto, Rowling met her future husband, television journalist Jorge Arantes. They got married in 1992, from this marriage they had a daughter, Jessica. Quite soon, Rowling and Arantes broke up: her husband, according to the writer, literally kicked her and her daughter out of the house. By Christmas 1994, Rowling was back in the UK. She and her daughter moved to Edinburgh, where her younger sister Di lived at the time. By this time, a significant part of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, had already been written. In an effort to complete the book, Rowling did not take the job. permanent job and finished writing the novel in cafes, including the popular Nicolson’s, which belonged to her relative.

In 1995, Rowling sent the first draft of the novel to two literary agents, and the first returned the text almost immediately, not considering it promising, and the second, Christopher Little, nevertheless undertook to add the manuscript. He succeeded a year later: “Harry Potter” attracted the interest of the small London publishing house Bloomsbury. His employee Barry Cunningham offered the writer a modest advance (one and a half thousand pounds sterling) in August 1996, which Rowling readily accepted.
The first printing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997 and amounted to only a thousand copies, half of which went to children's libraries. The book did not make much of an impression, but critics still noticed it. The Scottish organization The Scottish Art Council provided Rowling with a grant so that she could begin the second volume of Potter.
In the same year, at a professional fair for children's literature publishers in Bologna, Barry Cunningham managed to sell the rights to the American edition of Harry Potter to Scholastic, which offered the writer an unusually large advance for a debutante - $105,000. The writer had, however, to change the title of the book to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”). Subsequently, she never adapted the titles of the novels for an American audience.
The second book about Harry Potter (“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”) appeared in 1998. That same year, the film studio Warner Bros. bought the film rights to two Rowling novels. They were released in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Both were directed by Chris Columbus. Rowling herself wanted to see Briton Terry Gilliam direct the films, but the choice was left to the studio.

The third and fourth novels ("Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" were published in 1999 and 2000
Just after Christmas 2001 (December 26), JK Rowling remarried. This time her chosen one was Edinburgh anesthetist Neil Scott Murray. The birth of two children (the couple had a son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, in March 2003, and a daughter, Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray, in January 2005) slowed down work on new Potter sequels. The fifth book ("Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix") was published in 2003, and the sixth ("Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince") - in 2005.
The seventh and final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released in the UK and US, as well as several other countries, at midnight on July 21, 2007 local time. The premiere of Rowling's book was preceded by a series of leaks: several hackers and pirates posted a synopsis, and then digital photos American edition of the book on the Internet. An investigation undertaken by Scholastic publishing house revealed the sources of the leaked photographs: they turned out to be Levy Home Entertainment (LHE) and DeepDiscount.com, which, despite the embargo, delivered approximately 1,200 copies of the novel to American readers. One of the buyers posted the reshot pages of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” on file-sharing networks. In addition, two days before the release of the novel newspaper The New York Times published a review of the novel written by the publication's leading critic Michiko Kakutani. The author admitted that she bought the book from a New York store that also violated the embargo. Rowling and publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic have asked those who already have copies of the novel to “not ruin the fun for other readers.”
Film adaptations of Rowling's third, fourth and fifth novels appeared in 2004, 2006 and 2007, respectively. The sixth film ("Half-Blood Prince") was released in 2009, the seventh ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows") is expected to be released in two parts. The first part of "The Deathly Hallows" was released in 2010, and the second - in 2011.

Rowling has repeatedly assured that the seventh novel will be the last in the series, but on the eve of its release she did not rule out that she would write a continuation of the adventures of her heroes in the future. Her agent also announced that the writer plans to publish an encyclopedia of characters and realities from her novels.
The total worldwide circulation of the first six Harry Potter novels was 325 million copies. In March 2007, 41-year-old Rowling's fortune was estimated by Forbes magazine at one billion dollars.

The Harry Potter novels brought the writer many awards, including Nestle Smarties Gold Award (three times), British Book Awards, Children's Book Award (twice), The Booksellers Association/The Bookseller Author of the Year Award (twice), Scottish Arts Council Children's Book Award (twice), Spanish Prince of Asturias Award. In 2000, Rowling became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Rowling does a lot of charity work. In particular, she supports the Single Parents Foundation and the Foundation for Research into Multiple Sclerosis, the disease from which her mother died.
Rowling is named among the close friends of Sarah Brown, the wife of the current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

October 20, 2010 Lenta.ru JK Rowling became the first Andersen Prize winner
The first winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Literary Prize was British writer JK Rowling, CBC News reports. This newly established prize is awarded to children's writers for their closeness to Andersen's ideas.
The award ceremony took place on October 19 in Andersen’s homeland, in the Danish city of Odense. Cash reward The prize winner is 500 thousand crowns (about 100 thousand dollars).

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