J. K. Rowling

Who is J. K. Rowling?

Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE FRSL, pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies. They have become the best-selling book series in history, and been the basis for a series of films which has become the highest-grossing film series in history. Rowling had overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment.

Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. The seven-year period that followed entailed the death of her mother, divorce from her first husband and poverty until Rowling finished the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Rowling subsequently published 6 sequels — the last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — as well as 3 supplements to the series. Since, Rowling has parted with her agency and resumed writing for adult readership, releasing the tragicomedy The Casual Vacancy and — using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith — the crime fiction novel The Cuckoo's Calling.

Famous Quotes:

• Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most.
• I had an American journalist say to me, "Is it true you wrote the whole of the first novel on napkins?" I was tempted to say, "On teabags, I used to save them."
• I gave my hero a talent I'd love to have. Who wouldn't want to fly?
• To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
• It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
• You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself plainly when you have need of him.
• The consequences of our actions are so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.
• Time is making fools of us again.
• We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.
• Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human … the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.