Chatting to JK Rowling about Harry Potter
Her first break came with a Scottish Arts Council grant to finish the book. The manuscript was sold to Bloomsbury and Scholastic Books, and achieved almost instant success. Harry Potter climbed to the top of the bestseller lists for children's and adult books in many countries all over the world.
The story of the boy wizard, and his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry caught the imagination of readers of all ages.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in June 1997 and picked up numerous awards. It won The British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year, the Smarties Prize , and received rave reviews the world over. It was also shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award and Carnegie Medal, for which it received a "Commended" citation.
The next adventures of Harry Potter
With their fast-paced cliffhanger action and Dickensian names, the subsequent Harry Potter books have also received critical acclaim in the United States.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was cited as an American Library Association's (ALA) Notable Children's Book and ranked Number One on the Top Ten list of ALA's Best Books for Young Adults.
J.K. (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling grew up in Chipping, Gwent. She always wanted to be a writer and wrote her first "book" at the age of six - a story about a rabbit called "Rabbit". At school, Rowling was a quiet and imaginative student, her favorite subject being English.
She reveled in telling stories to her studious and serious friends over lunchtime, in which they all performed heroic feats and good deeds. She was made Head Girl in her final year. She left Chepstow for Exeter University, where her course included one year in Paris. As a post-graduate, she moved to London to work at Amnesty International as a researcher and bilingual secretary.
In the summer of 1990, during a particularly long train journey from Manchester to London, the idea of Harry Potter, a boy who is a wizard and doesn't know it, first flashed into her mind. By the time the train arrived at London four hours later, she already knew the characters and the early stages of the plot. The story took further shape as she continued working on it in pubs and cafes in her lunch hours.
In 1992 Rowling moved to Portugal to teach English as a Second Language. After her marriage to a Portuguese TV journalist ended in divorce, Rowling returned to Britain with her infant daughter. She settled in Edinburgh to be near her sister.
To escape her cold, dank flat she worked on the Harry Potter book in coffee shops and pubs in the neighborhood. Once completed, Rowling began sending the manuscript to publishers. It was rejected several times before she found an London agent, who sold the manuscript to Bloomsbury Children's Books in Britain.
Scholastic Books bought the American rights to the book for an unprecedented figure for a first-time children's author. The advance for the American edition allowed Rowling to quit her teaching job and write full-time. She now had the luxury to concentrate on writing the sequels to the first book.
To date the books have been translated into approximately 30 languages and have been issued in audio recordings as well as print; a major motion picture is also being made by Warner Bros . The three sequels that have appeared so far are also accumulating awards and enjoying worldwide popularity.
JK Rowling lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her daughter Jessica and continues to work on writing the seven-book saga of Harry Potter.