JK Rowling has reacted after apparently receiving multiple threats of rape and murder from trans activists. [292] Hermione Granger, in particular, becomes an active and independent character essential to the protagonists' battle against evil. ", "J.K. Rowling's 'transphobia' tweet row spotlights a fight between equality campaigners and radical feminists", "JK Rowling responds to trans tweets criticism", "Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in 'anti-intellectual times', "BBC nominates J.K.Rowling's controversial essay of trans rights for award", "Stephen King, Margaret Atwood and Roxane Gay champion trans rights in open letter", "Artists fire back at J.K. Rowling's anti-trans remarks, share messages in support of the community", "Universal Parks responds to J.K. Rowling tweets: 'Our core values include diversity, inclusion and respect', "WB Interactive president responds to ongoing debate over supporting JK Rowling", "J.K. Rowling criticized after tweeting support for anti-transgender researcher", "Maya Forstater: woman wins tribunal appeal over transgender tweets", "Gender-critical views are a protected belief, appeal tribunal rules", "Mermaids writes open letter to JK Rowling following her recent comments on trans people", "Daniel Radcliffe criticizes J.K. Rowling's anti-transgender tweets", "J.K. Rowling gets backlash over anti-trans tweets", "Children's news website apologises to JK Rowling over trans tweet row", "Eddie Redmayne criticizes J.K. Rowling's anti-trans tweets", "Ralph Fiennes defends J.K. rowling amid trans controversy, says backlash is 'disturbing', "Every Harry Potter actor who's spoken out against J.K. Rowling's controversial trans comments", "Stephen Fry defends 'friendship' with JK Rowling: 'I'm sorry that people are upset', "Helena Bonham Carter says Johnny Depp 'completely vindicated' in defamation trial, and J.K. Rowling 'hounded' for transgender stance", "How the 'Harry Potter' reunion addresses author J.K. Rowling's anti-trans controversy", "J.K. Rowling reveals she's a sexual assault survivor; Emma Watson reacts to trans comments", "J.K. Rowling reveals past abuse and defends right to speak on trans issues", "JK Rowling reveals she is survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault", "J.K. Rowling defends trans statements in lengthy essay, reveals she's a sexual assault survivor & says 'trans people need and deserve protection', "J.K. Rowling doubles down in what some critics call a 'transphobic manifesto', "JK Rowling receives support from Ian McEwan and Frances Barber amid 'transphobia' row", "Harry Potter fan sites distance themselves from JK Rowling over transgender rights", "The battle for Stonewall: the LGBT charity and the UK's gender wars", "Dave Chappelle says he's 'Team TERF,' defends J.K. Rowling in new Netflix comedy special", "JK Rowling returns human rights award to group that denounces her trans views", "JK Rowling and the bitter battle of the book world", "Maya Forstater: who is woman in employment tribunal over transgender comments? what happened to jk rowling careerladybug poop pictures. In Defense of J.K. Rowling. [368] Lumos has worked with an orphanage west of Kyiv, Ukraine since 2013;[373][374] after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rowling offered to personally match up to 1million in donations to Lumos for Ukraine. [65] She began to smoke, took an interest in alternative rock,[59] and adopted Siouxsie Sioux's back-combed hair and black eyeliner. [312], Rowling's Harry Potter series has been credited with a resurgence in crossover fiction: children's literature with an adult appeal. "I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless," she said . Uncle Vernon loves Top Gear! I argue that it is part in due to Rowling's work that the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings was reinvigorated on such a global scale since both are some 70+ years old. They live in Edinburgh with their son, David (born 2003) and daughter, Mackenzie (born 2005). [357] In the mid-2000s, Rowling and her publishers obtained a series of injunctions prohibiting sales or published reviews of her books before their official release dates. The Casual Vacancy, her attempt at literary fiction, drew mixed reviews. [136] It was not widely reviewed, but the reviews it received were generally positive. [97] Rowling described the marriage as "short and catastrophic". Harry Potter [397] She campaigned for the UK to stay in the European Union in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. [245] Like C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter contains Christian symbolism and allegory. [98] Rowling and Arantes separated on 17 November 1993 after Arantes threw her out of the house; she returned with the police to retrieve Jessica and went into hiding for two weeks before she left Portugal. Malfoy married pureblood Astoria Greengrass, who did not raise their son to believe Muggles or others were less than purebloods. But hard as she tries to reclaim it, the Wizarding World is, in many ways, lost to her. [63] Rowling later said "home was a difficult place to be",[64] and that her teenage years were unhappy. [187], Little, Brown published The Cuckoo's Calling, the purported dbut novel of Robert Galbraith, in April 2013. In, Heilman, Elizabeth E.; Donaldson, Trevor. Weve been urged to stop streaming Travis Scotts music following the Astroworld tragedy. [337] In the following decades, many Harry Potter imitators and subversive responses grew popular. [277] Harold Bloom regards Rowling's prose as poor and her plots as conventional,[278][279] while Jack Zipes argues that the series would not be successful if it were not formulaic. Smith writes that the Rowling sisters "never attended Sunday school or services", A tribunal ruled in 2021 that Forstater's gender-critical views were protected under the 2010 UK, Bell, Christopher; Alexander, Julie. [351][352], In the 1990s and 2000s, Rowling was both a plaintiff and defendant in lawsuits alleging copyright infringement. [393][394], In 2008, Rowling donated 1million to the Labour Party, endorsed the Labour prime minister Gordon Brown over his Conservative challenger David Cameron, and commended Labour's policies on child poverty. [227] Rowling also draws on the tradition of stories set in boarding schools, a major example of which is Thomas Hughes's 1857 volume Tom Brown's School Days. He happened to have known two of the wizards for whose life's work Gilderoy Lockhart had taken credit, and was one of the only people in the world who thought he knew what Lockhart was up to. In, Berberich, Christine. The Harry Potter author was accused of transphobia last year after comments she made. [382] To support COVID-19 relief, she donated six-figure sums to both Khalsa Aid and the British Asian Trust from royalties for The Ickabog. Who's Still Together From 'The Perfect Match'? Some critics praised its characterisation, while others stated that it would have been better if it had contained magic. [133] She bought a flat in Edinburgh with the money from the sale. [318] The author and scholar Amanda Cockrell suggests that Harry Potter's popularity, and recent preoccupation with fantasy and the occult among Christian fundamentalists, explains why the series received particular opposition. [11], Anne Rowling was diagnosed with a "virulent strain" of multiple sclerosis when she was 34[59] or 35 and Jo was 15,[60] and had to give up her job. [66][h], Living in a small town with pressures at home, Rowling became more interested in her school work. [472], Sources differ on the precise name of Rowling's place of birth. ", "HBO picks up 'Cormoran Strike' crama based on J.K. Rowling's crime novels", "Pottermore website launched by JK Rowling as 'give-back' to fans", "How much magic can 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' make on Broadway? [70][71], Rowling always wanted to be a writer,[72] but chose to study French and the classics at the University of Exeter for practical reasons, influenced by her parents who thought job prospects would be better with evidence of bilingualism. "The fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination". [50] When she was a young teenager, Rowling's great-aunt gave her Hons and Rebels, the autobiography of the civil rights activist Jessica Mitford. Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, before her remarriage her name was Joanne Rowling,[2] or Jo. [227][228] Rowling's setting of a "school of witchcraft and wizardry" departs from the still older tradition of protagonists as apprentices to magicians, exemplified by The Sorcerer's Apprentice: yet this trope does appear in Harry Potter, when Harry receives individual instruction from Remus Lupin and other teachers. [5] Their son, David Gordon Rowling Murray, was born in 2003,[172] and their daughter Mackenzie Jean Rowling Murray in 2005. The novels follow a boy called Harry Potter as he attends Hogwarts, a school for wizards, and battles Lord Voldemort. [175] By 2012, Forbes concluded she was no longer a billionaire due to her charitable donations and high UK taxes. [242] These elements serve to highlight Harry when he is heroic, making him both an everyman and a fairytale hero. Joanne Rowling CH OBE FRSL (/rol/ "rolling";[1] born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J.K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. . [100] Rowling has spoken of an estrangement from her father, stating in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that "It wasn't a good relationship from my point of view for a very long time but I had a need to please and I kept that going for a long time and then there just came a point at which I had to pull up and say I can't do this anymore. JK Rowling has offered hope to aspiring authors everywhere, after revealing that the first literary agent she sent the manuscript of Harry Potter to responded with just a slip of paper rejecting . It was previously believed that the initial print run was 500 copies total, but this number is "woefully inaccurate". [368] Together with the MEP Emma Nicholson,[372] Rowling founded the charity now known as Lumos in 2005. [20] Neither Anne nor Pete attended university. [120] Following an enthusiastic report from an early reader,[121] Christopher Little Literary Agency agreed to represent Rowling. [202], Pottermore, a website with information and stories about characters in the Harry Potter universe, launched in 2011. [40][123] Rowling recalls Cunningham telling her, "You'll never make any money out of children's books, Jo. JK Rowling was born on July 31, 1965, in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, to Peter James Rowling and Anne Volant Rowling. [368] To support Children's Voice, later renamed Lumos, Rowling sold a deluxe copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard at auction in 2007. As of January2022, St Michael's Primary School headmaster, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the. [40][k] With nine months of therapy, her mental health gradually improved. She was not even invited to the 20th Anniversary Reunion Special on HBO Max. [353][354] Rowling won in September 2002. [296], The social hierarchies in Rowling's magical world have been a matter of debate among scholars and critics. Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International in 1990 when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series while on a delayed train from Manchester to London. [225] Rowling expresses admiration for Lewis, in whose writing battles between good and evil are also prominent, but rejects any connection with Dahl. But Harry Potter isnt just a series of books anymore. [110], Rowling wanted to finish the book before enrolling in a teacher training course, fearing she might not be able to finish once she started the course. It was the most devastating period of Rowling's life where she was divorced, jobless, and a single mother of an infant. Rowling has won many accolades for her work. Career . Critical reception has been more mixed. [156] Secrets of Dumbledore was released in April 2022. From what she reveals, it sounds like Draco Malfoy and his wife veered. [214], Several publications in the Harry Potter universe have been sold for charitable purposes. She has received an OBE and made a Companion of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy. She was doxxed by one user and threatened with a pipe bomb, without Twitter stepping in to do anything about the individual's. Harry is a hero because he loves others, even willing to accept death to save them; Voldemort is a villain because he does not. Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think youll love as much as we do. After a couple of decades of "Harry Potter," Rowling has turned the boy wizard into an entertainment franchise including books, movies, a play, a theme park, and more. [314] Some Christian critics, particularly Evangelical Christians, have claimed that the novels promote witchcraft and harm children;[315][316] similar opposition has been expressed to the film adaptations. [42], Rowling's secondary school was Wyedean School and College, a state school she began attending at the age of eleven[43] and where she was bullied. QUICK FACTS. [285] Other critics who see artistic merit in Rowling's writing include Marina Warner, who views Harry Potter as part of an "alternative genealogy" of English literature that she traces from Edmund Spenser to Christina Rossetti. [n] She began attending a Church of Scotland congregation, where Jessica was christened, around the time she was writing Harry Potter. In, Alton, Anne Hiebert. [366], Long interested in issues affecting women and children,[367] Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust in 2000, named after her mother[368] to address social deprivation in at-risk women, children and youth. Its influences include Bildungsroman (the coming-of-age genre), school stories, fairy tales, and Christian allegory. Call it a loss of youthful idealism, or call it pragmatism, it is what allows us to survive in the adult world. [448] After Kerry Kennedy expressed "profound disappointment" in her views, Rowling returned the Ripple of Hope Award given to her by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organisation. [233][234] Her other writings have been described by Pugh as gritty contemporary fiction with historical influences (The Casual Vacancy) and hardboiled detective fiction (Cormoran Strike). [81], Rowling moved to Manchester around November 1990. [52], Her biographer Sean Smith raises the question of why Rowling chose to stay with her sister rather than her father. [40] In mid-1990, she was on a train delayed by four hours from Manchester to London,[81] when the characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger came plainly into her mind. [313] In the following years, parents in several US cities launched protests against teaching it in schools. [408], Rowling's responses to proposed changes to UK gender recognition laws,[409][410][r] and her views on sex and gender, have provoked controversy. [365] Rowling's charitable donations before 2012 were estimated by Forbes at $160million. Yet few people have failed as hard as J.K. Rowling has. Insisting he had no option but to sell them, Mr Rowling said then: 'It was a short conversation. [290] Gender divides are ostensibly absent in the books: Hogwarts is coeducational and women hold positions of power in wizarding society. Because of this, I feel a personal ownership over Harry Potter in a way that I dont over, say, Louis C.K.s Louie, a show that I once loved. [8][b] Her parents Anne (ne Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the previous year on a train, sharing a trip from King's Cross station, London, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland. ", "Warner Bros. Pictures Worldwide Satellite Trailer Debut: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1", "J.K. Rowling, HBO, BBC team for 'Casual Vacancy' miniseries", "Warner Bros. announces expanded creative partnership with J.K. Rowling", "Holliday Grainger to star in J.K. Rowling's 'Cormoran Strike' TV series (exclusive)", "A thrilling new adventure in J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World is underway", Hermione and the house-elves: the literary and historical contexts of J. K. Rowling's antislavery campaign, Cinderfella: J. K. Rowling's wily web of gender, Accepting Mudbloods: the ambivalent social vision of J. K. Rowling's fairy tales, Class and socioeconomic identity in Harry Potter's England, Cruel heroes and treacherous texts: educating the reader in moral complexity and critical reading in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Children's Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, Locating Harry Potter in the 'Boys' Book' market, Crowning the king: Harry Potter and the construction of authority, Harry Potter and the extraordinariness of the ordinary, The education of a wizard: Harry Potter and his predecessors, "Transformative readings: Harry Potter fan fiction, trans/queer reader response, and J. K. Rowling", "The magician's niece: the kinship between J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis", "A 'phrase too cute to do our ugliness justice': portraying 'wounded warriors' in contemporary war fiction", "Feminism, trans justice, and speech rights: a comparative perspective", Children's Literature Association Quarterly, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, "Not my turf: Helen Lewis argues that vitriol around the trans debate means only extreme voices are being heard", "The gender wars, academic freedom and education", "J.K. Rowling, creadora de Harry Potter, Prncipe de Asturias de la Concordia", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J._K._Rowling&oldid=1141514991. [31] In 2020, she wrote that her father would have preferred a son and described herself as having severe obsessivecompulsive disorder in her teens. J.K. Rowling has been mocked for writing a new novel about a women who . [449], As Rowling's views on the legal status of transgender people came under scrutiny,[412] she received insults and death threats[450][451] and discussion moved beyond the Twitter community. Smith describes Tutshill as "staunchly middle class", Pugh writes that "Rowling reportedly modeled the strict pedagogical style of, Smith compares the place meals held in the Rowling household, Rowling later described Harris as her "getaway driver and foul weather friend"; his Anglia inspired a flying version that appeared in, Pugh writes, "In a droll allusion to this ill-fated union, Professor Trelawney warns Lavender Brown, 'Incidentally, that thing you are dreading it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October'. [369] She was appointed president of One Parent Families (now Gingerbread) in 2004,[370] after becoming its first ambassador in 2000. [256] Unlike Voldemort, who evades death by separating and hiding his soul in seven parts, Harry's soul is whole, nourished by friendship and love. I am not here to debate whatever cancel culture means to you today because, frankly, I do not care. [403] Rowling dislikes the British tabloid the Daily Mail,[404] which she successfully sued in 2014 for libel about her time as a single mother. [41] She later described herself during this period as "the epitome of a bookish child short and squat, thick National Health glasses, living in a world of complete daydreams". [255] In Harry's world, death is not binary but mutable, a state that exists in degrees. [353][361] The court held that Lexicon was neither a fair use of Rowling's material nor a derivative work, but it did not prevent the book from being published in a different form. [52] With the end of the relationship with her boyfriend, and "being made redundant from an office job in Manchester", Rowling described herself as being in a state of "fight or flight". [20] The three walked to and from school, sharing stories about their day, more like sisters than mother and daughters. Born in July 1965, J. K. Rowling is an author and screenwriter who rose to prominence in the mid-90s when the first of the seven "Harry Potter" books was released. The book, and its series, told the story of Harry Potter, a young wizard, and his peers at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. [40] Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she later described this as "liberating" her to focus on writing. [209] Ickabog is a monster that turns out to be real; a group of children find out the truth about the Ickabog and save the day. [6], Joanne Rowling was born on 31 July 1965 at Cottage Hospital in Yate, Gloucestershire. She co-founded the charity Lumos and established the Volant Charitable Trust, named after her mother. Rowling has always been open about her views on British politics. In, McEvoy, Kathleen. [118] Rowling later said that writing the first Harry Potter book had saved her life and that her concerns about "love, loss, separation, death are reflected in the first book". ", Rowling says that Jessica was named after Mitford and a boy would have been named Harry; according to Smith (2002), Arantes says that Jessica was named after, The Scottish Arts Council grant was after Rowling had a contract for publication of. That was 1994 and in the decades since, the mother, JK Rowling, has become arguably the most famous, and richest, writer in the world. "The great Snape debate". [140] It was published in June 2003, selling millions of copies on the first day. In 2007 she was ranked as the highest paid writer in the world, according to Forbes. [52], Anne had a strong influence on her daughter. Quidditch is now a real-world sport with gameplay rules edited for logic and, ironically, extremely progressive regulations on gender homogeneity within individual teams. [205][206] Fans have been more critical of the play's use of time travel, changes to characters' personalities, and perceived queerbaiting in Albus and Scorpius's relationship, leading some to question its connection to the Harry Potter canon. [258][259] First impressions of characters are often misleading. I was nine when I first read, Because of this, I feel a personal ownership over, But hard as she tries to reclaim it, the Wizarding World is, in many ways, lost to her. [238] This blend of realistic and romantic elements extends to Rowling's characters. [330] The next decade saw an increasing interest in grim, realist themes, with an outflow of fantasy readers and writers to adult works. "[124] Rowling was awarded a writer's grant by the Scottish Arts Council[l] to support her childcare costs and finances before Philosopher's Stone's publication, and to aid in writing the sequel, Chamber of Secrets. She defined herself as an internationalist, "the mongrel product of this European continent",[28] and expressed concern that "racists and bigots" were directing parts of the Leave campaign. She suffered severe bouts of depression but she persevered. J.K. Rowling after sparking chaos earlier has wreaked havoc on social media once again after the release of her new book which has been labelled 'transphobic'. [267] The first three Harry Potter books occupied the top three spots of The New York Times bestseller list for more than a year; they were then moved to a newly created children's list. [321][322] After the final volume was published, Rowling said she intentionally incorporated Christian themes, in particular the idea that love may hold power over death. [137] Sorcerer's Stone became a New York Times bestseller by December. It has earned multiple British Book Awards, beginning with the Children's Book of the Year for the first two volumes, Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Honestly revisiting the books as adults, the holes and problematic aspects of the Wizarding World become more clear. [10][c] The Rowlings lived near a family called Potter a name Joanne always liked. [113] In mid-1995, a friend gave her money that allowed her to come off benefits and enrol full-time in college. Rowling has previously liked a tweet for an anti-trans essay on Medium, according to a story by Burns for Them. J.K. Rowling, in full Joanne Kathleen Rowling, pen name of Joanne Rowling, (born July 31, 1965, Yate, near Bristol, England), British author, creator of the popular and critically acclaimed Harry Potter series, about a young sorcerer in training. [19] Anne later worked as a science technician. First things first. Rowling concluded the Harry Potter series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). [182], In mid-2011, Rowling left Christopher Little Literary Agency and followed her agent Neil Blair to the Blair Partnership.