J.K. Rowling and the power of imagination

J.K. Rowling turns 50 on July 31. She became one of the most successful authors with her Harry Potter novels. Like the sorcerer's apprentice, her own life sounds like a fairy tale.

In 1997, Joanne Kathleen Rowling rode the Hogwarts Express to the Didcot Railway Center, a London railway museum, to promote her first Harry Potter novel. The unemployed single mother spent five years writing it and a dozen publishers rejected it. Even Bloomsbury didn't want it at first, until the editors changed their mind - and hit the jackpot.

The first print run of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was only 500 copies. In the meantime, over 450 million copies of the volumes of the Potter epic were sold and they were translated in 78 languages. When "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" came out, fans were both excited and sad: It was to be the last of the series.

The silver screen adaptations of the seven books were box-office hits. The three young actors who embodied the wizardry students, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, all became stars. The last film of the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," was released in July 2011.

Joanne K. Rowling is considered the first female author to have earned over a billion dollars with her works. With her fame and fortune, she's now a guest of honor at public events. In 2008, she delivered the commencement speech at Harvard University - just like Bill Gates did the year before.

She has long been involved in different charities, especially those supporting children. Her own organization, "Lumos," named after one of Harry Potter's spells, aims to provide institutions caring for about eight million children worldwide. Almost a decade ago, in January 2006, she co-established a foundation for children's homes in Romania.

After her Potter books, Rowling started writing literature for adults. "The Casual Vacancy" was published in 2012 under her real name; the detective novels "The Cuckoo's Calling" (2013) and "The Silkworm" (2014) came out under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Yet this didn't stay a secret for long - it probably didn't hurt the sales.

On April 9, 2015, the day J.K. Rowling made the announcement she was launching her children's charity "Lumos" (pictured here), even the Empire State Building in New York had a special lighting to celebrate. Now remarried, J.K. Rowling still happily lives in Edinburgh, with her second husband and three children.