JK Rowling: Harry Potter author is 50 – STERN

The story is simple too good not to tell again and again. An unemployed, single mother in Edinburgh have to freeze in her apartment and therefore much sitting in the cafe. There she wrote a book, while the daughter is sleeping in the car. After five years of work, the first novel appears a sorcerer’s apprentice – and makes the woman the best-selling author and an international star. Of course, there is talk of Joanne Kathleen Rowling, known as JK, the creator of the Harry Potter saga. On Friday it will be 50.

Your life as a social assistance recipient has Rowling left long behind him, Potter has made them rich. At 580 million pounds, more than 800 million euros, estimated the “Sunday Times” their assets in the spring. A dozen publishers had rejected the manuscript for now. “I knew that the difficulty would be to publish it,” Rowling said the US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, “and that it would be huge.”

worldwide phenomenon Harry Potter

You was right. The seven books have been a global phenomenon, the films to blockbusters. And so should stay apparently. The Hogwarts Express Marketing never stops: Every few weeks there are new from Potter’s school. A short story here, a play there, end of next year there will be a new film with Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne. It is probably the first of a trilogy. The template, a fictional textbook Harry, has only about 120 pages.

On the website “Pottermore” can read additional articles or relive scenes from the books and games fans. And of course, shopping. “Pottermore.com is a stroke of genius,” judged the “Guardian” 2011. The production company Warner offers a Harry Potter Studio Tour which is a theme park in the US has Harry’s world copied, the number of merchandise products – from linen over wands up the game of chess – is hardly manageable

success under a pseudonym

Not only financially, it runs better than it was then for Rowling in the café in Edinburgh.. She still lives in the city, but now with her second husband and three children. By the way, who was born in England Yate Rowling produced diligently literature for adults. “The Casual Vacancy” was published under her real name, the detective thrillers “The Cuckoo’s Calling” and “The silkworm” under the pen name Robert Galbraith. They wanted to write without pressure, she said. The secret flew quickly because a lawyer there told the friend of his wife, who divulged it on Twitter. Actual sales figures show harm not, the lawyer was aufgebrummt fined. Rowling donated their compensation.

Even JK was the way the Potter books to hide Rowling’s identity. The publisher thought Harry Potter was something for boys, and it had better not name his wife to read on the title. Because they had no middle name, assumed the author of the K. the names of their Lieblingsoma.

Engagement off the literature

By the way reports the British gladly on political issues such as the Scottish independence to speak (it was against). She also promotes her charity Lumos, who wants to help some eight million children in homes around the world and after a light spell of “Harry Potter” is named. “The aim is definitely to abolish all homes,” Rowling says about this work.

do

So Much. Could the author still find time for a new “Potter”? Even eight years after with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the last band has appeared on the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, give fans hope. This is also their way to answer questions afterwards. “I have a feeling that I have Harry’s story finished,” she said in April in the NBC show “Today”. “But I’ve always said that I will not say that I definitely do not do it.”