J.K. Rowling is the author of Harry Potter books.J.K. Stands for Joanne Kathleen.

Rowling was born on 31 July 1965, to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling , a science technician, in Yate, Gloucestershire, England.

J.K. Rowling’s parents, Peter James Rowling and Anne Volant, met on a train that was travelling from King's Cross, from London to Scotland. They were just 18.

Joanne lived with her parents and her sister. The Rowling family was not rich. Joanne did not go to special schools. She was a quit child.

She attended St Michael's Primary School

She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department.

Inspiration and mother's deathIn 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind.

Inspiration and mother's deathIn December, Rowling's mother Anne died after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis.Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it.Her death heavily affected Rowling's writing and she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew how it felt.

Marriage, divorce and single parenthoodAn advert in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto in Portugal to teach English as a foreign language.After eighteen months in Porto, she met Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes.

Marriage, divorce and single parenthoodThey married on 16 October 1992 and their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes, was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal.The couple separated on 17 November 1993.Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage.

Marriage, divorce and single parenthood

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child.

She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café (owned by her brother-in-law, Roger Moore), and The Elephant House; wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep.

Harry PotterIn 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter.The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.

A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London.

Harry PotterIn June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000

Five months later, the book won its first award, a 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.

Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and again Rowling won the Smarties Prize.

In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance.

The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000 and broke sales records in both countries.372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equaling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year.In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all records.

A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.(2003)

The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005.

It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release.

In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007 and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time.It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States.

Financial success

In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list, claiming that her US$160 million in charitable donations meant she was no longer a billionaire.

In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the 1,062nd richest person in the world.

Philanthropy

Rowling donated the handwritten history of the family of Sirius Black to a fundraiser for Book Aid International.The author has said that her favorite charity is One Parent Families.She co-founded Lumos to work at a political and practical level to ensure that UN minimum standards for the care of children are implemented across the whole of Europe and beyond. She also founded the Volant Trust in memory of her mother.

Philanthropy

• Catie Hoch Foundation• Children with AIDS• Dyslexia Action• Gingerbread• Haven Foundation• Heifer International• Lumos• Make A Child Smile Appeal• Multiple Sclerosis Society• PEN• Book Aid International• Raisa Gorbachev Foundation• Women's Fund for Scotland• XP Support Group

Charities & foundations supported

Second marriage

J.K. Rowling married Dr. Neil Murray on 26th

December 2001, in a private ceremony at their

country home in Scotland.

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be”

-J.K.Rowling

Vipin Dorle

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling

www.jkrowling.com

www.biography.com/people/jk-rowling-40998