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J.K.
(Joanne Kathleen) Rowling was born in 1965 and grew up in
Chepstow, Gwent. She left Chepstow to study French at Exeter
University, where her course included a year in Paris. As
a postgraduate, she moved to London to work at Amnesty International
doing research into human rights abuses in Francophone Africa.
She started writing Harry Potter after the idea occurred
to her on an interminable Manchester to London train journey.
Jo then moved to north Portugal to teach English as a foreign
language, married, got pregnant, and kept writing. By the
time her daughter was born, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone was one-quarter finished.
Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by
Bloomsbury Children's Books in June 1997 to great critical
acclaim, and has since won the Nestlé Smarties Book
Prize Gold Medal (9-11 years), the FCBG Children's Book
Award (overall winner), the Birmingham Cable Children's
Book Award, the Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year, the
British Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year and the
Sheffield Children's Book Award, and was shortlisted for
the Guardian Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal (received
'Commended'). The book has also won two extremely prestigious
foreign awards - Sorcieres Prix 1998 in France and the Premio
Cento per la Letteratura Infantile 1998 in Italy.
The
second title in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber
of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and was no. 1
in the overall adult hardback bestseller charts for a month
after publication. It has since won the Nestlé Smarties
Book Prize (9-11 years), the Scottish Arts Council Children's
Book Award, the FCBG Children's Book Award and the British
Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year, plus been shortlisted
for the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award, the
Sheffield Children's Book Award, and the Guardian Fiction
Prize. J.K. Rowling was voted BA Author of the Year in 1999.
Harry
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published on
8 July 1999 to nationwide acclaim and massive press attention,
spending its first four weeks at no.1 in the hardback bestseller
charts, while Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
simultaneously topped the paperback charts. Harry Potter
and the Prisoner of Azkaban won the Nestlé Smarties
Book Prize (9-11 years), and the Whitbread Children's Book
of the Year and was shortlisted for the Children's Book
Award, Sheffield Children's Book Award, the Carnegie Medal
and the Guardian Fiction Prize. J.K. Rowling was voted author
of the year at the 1999 British Book Awards (Nibbies) and
she recently won BA Author of the Year for the second year
running. She was awarded an OBE for services to children's
literature in June 2000.
The
fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire, was published on 8 July 2000 with a record
first print run of 1 million copies, and quickly broke all
records for the greatest number of books sold on the first
day of publication, as well as shooting to the top of the
bestseller charts.
J.K.
Rowling wrote two books in aid of Comic Relief, Fantastic
Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch through the
Ages which were published in March 2001.
A film
version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, directed
by Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire) was released
in November 2001 and ended the year as the top-grossing
movie of 2001. Production is already underway for a second
film instalment, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
In late
December 2001, Rowling married the anaesthetist Dr. Neil
Murray at the couple's home in Scotland.
Biography
provided by Bloomsbury who publish the Harry Potter books
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