Unpleasant childhood lived in poverty, was a victim of domestic violence, and almost faced all the miseries one could ever face but still stood on her feet and showed the world that she was unstoppable.
JK Rowling is the Best Selling Author living in Britain. She is also a philanthropist, film producer, television producer, and screenwriter. She is best known for her writing of the ‘Harry Potter’ fantasy series.
The writing was her talent, which she discovered at a young age. She often wrote fantasy stories and frequently read to her sister. When she was in her early teenage years, she received a copy of Jessica Mitford’s autobiography and she became her heroine. Her teenage years were unhappy because her parents’ relationship was toxic and her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
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She earned a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. She was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International. She moved to Manchester and worked at the Chamber of Commerce. While waiting for a delayed train from Manchester to London, an idea came into her mind for a story of a young boy attending a wizardry school.
She moved to Portugal and became an English language teacher and at the same time continued her writing. She met Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese journalist, married him, and had a daughter. But her married life didn’t turn out pleasant. She was subjected to domestic violence and later divorced her husband. After the divorce, she moved to Scotland with her daughter. By this time she had written three chapters of the series.
She saw herself as a failure; her marriage had failed, she was jobless and was a single parent with a dependent child. But she described her failure as ‘liberating’ as she could focus more on her work because of it. She suffered depression at the same time. But she continued her writing
After completing the first part of the series called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, she asked Bryony Evens to review the first three chapters of the book. She received a positive response and thus decided to get the book published.
Even after so many struggles, ease didn’t come her way. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.
But finally, one year later, her manuscript was chosen by Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house based in London. This was the first step towards her success. Only after 5 months of publishing the book, it received its first award. Later released more sequels and Harry Potter became a global brand. Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to the first two novels out of seven.
According to Forbes, JK Rowling is now the world’s first billionaire author. She is the 196th richest person in the UK as her fortune is estimated to be £820 million. Time magazine named her a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year. She was given the title of ‘Most Influential Woman in Britain’. She also launched her own charity, ‘Lumps’, and supported many other charities. She lost her billionaire status after giving away most of her earnings to charity, reported Forbes.
We could see Rowling’s talent in her writings. Her mother died after 10 years of suffering from multiple sclerosis, while JK was writing Harry Potter. She penned down her own feelings of loss of her mother by writing about Harry’s grief in detail in the first book.
Not only this but the character of Harry Potter’s headmaster known by the name Albas Dumbledore was inspired by her own headmaster from her primary school. She based the character of Hermione Granger on herself when she was 11. She inspired a flying version of her best friend’s turquoise color car in the series. The soul-sucking creatures in the series, called Dementors, were inspired by her depression.
