Today, July 31, the English writer JK Rowling, who gave the world the story of the little wizard Harry Potter, turns 53 years old. In honor of this event, "Owl" decided to recall little-known facts from the creative and personal life of this talented person.
4. Quidditch is one of the decorations of the book about the young wizard. It turns out that Rowling also came up with it at the moment of emotional distress. She had a fight with a guy, because of which she was very worried - she later said that her condition could be compared to that experienced by a man when he watches a basketball game. And this helped her come up with a new game - the writer sketched in a notebook the rules of the new game, diagrams, graphics, and the names of the balls: she chose the Quaffle, Bludger and Snitch.
Arena for Quidditch. Photo: harrypotter.wikia 16 of September in Moscow, on stage International Moscow House of Music there will be a festival "Movie sound. World Soundtracks». This autumn evening in the performance chamber orchestra Collegium Musicum Soundtracks from popular films will be played, including those from Harry Potter. Tickets can be purchased at the Ponominalu box office or online.
5. It's hard to believe, but J.K. Rowling was denied a Harry Potter story by 14 publishers! And only the 15th attempt was successful - the Bloomsbury publishing house decided to accept the book for publication. At that time, it was believed that selling 3,000 copies was already jumping above your head. By the way, today about 500 million copies have already been sold around the world.
Cover of the first English edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Photo: Lenta.ru 6. Many of the characters in the Harry Potter books are taken from real people. Rowling has repeatedly said that Professor Snape and Gilderoy Lockhart are exaggerated versions of her acquaintances. But Hermione is a projection on Rowling: they even have the same favorite animal - the otter.
Cover: "Mir24"
Before becoming a world-famous writer, Joan worked research assistant and secretary-translator in the international organization Amnesty International.
King's Cross Station in London, for all fans of the work of JK Rowling plays a special role. In 1990, Rowling left her job at Amnesty International and decided to move from Manchester to London. On the train to King's Cross Station, she had the idea for a Harry Potter novel. The station of this particular station became in her books the gateway to the magical world. For the writer herself, this station is also symbolic. It was here that her parents met in 1964.
Joan's talent for writing showed up even more. in early childhood. She loved to tell her own fantastic stories to her sister. According to her memoirs, the writer created her first story at the age of 5 or 6.
In 1982 Rowling failed the entrance exams to the University of Oxford. The future world-famous writer graduated from the University of Exeter with a bachelor's degree in classical philology and French.
According to JK Rowling, the Harry Potter novels are very many biographical facts from her life. So, one of the main characters of Hermione, according to the writer herself, is a caricature of herself at the age of 11, Harry Potter's best friend Ron Weasley is in many ways very similar to her childhood school friend Sean Harris, and Rowling gave her day to the main character of the novels birth. Now fans of the JK Rowling series of novels are celebrating Harry Potter's birthday on July 31st. In many ways, the death of the writer's mother also influenced the novel. Rowling notes that by detailing the loss of Harry's parents in the first book in the series, she helped herself deal with the bereavement.
When Rowling began writing the first Harry Potter novel that would make her famous throughout the world, she considered herself "the biggest loser". Her personal life was destroyed, she divorced her first husband, whom she met in Portugal, was left alone and without work with her little daughter in her arms.
In five years, Rowling went from living on welfare to becoming a multimillionaire.
When Joan graduated in 1995 novel "The Philosopher's Stone", 12 publishing houses to which she sent the manuscript refused to publish it. In the end, only Bloomsbury agreed. Three years later, an auction will be announced among publishers for the right to publish this book. The latest book in the Harry Potter series, like all the others, broke all sales records in history: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" readers in the US and UK sold out 11 million copies in one day.
Today Rowling happy in second marriage with Neil Michael Murray. They had a son, David Gordon. Jean Rowlin dedicated the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to her daughter Mackenzie.
J. K. Rowling after recognition became and notable benefactor. She supports many charities. For her work in 2007, she received second place in the nomination "Person of the Year" and hit the top 50 most influential celebrities, and in 2010 she became "the most powerful woman in the UK."
JK Rowling was born on July 31st. She turns 48 this year. In honor of her birthday, we recall the most important facts from her life and career.
Rowling began writing her first stories as a child.
1. Joan Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in Gloucestershire. She has a younger sister, Diane.
2. As children, parents dressed their daughters in the same clothes, which differed only in colors: Joan's was blue, and her sister's was pink. The parents really wanted a boy.
3. Rowling began to invent her first stories as a child. According to her memoirs, she was the first to invent a story about a rabbit named Rabbit, who was ill with measles.
4. In 1983, Rowling entered the University of Exeter in Devon, where she studied French language and literature and received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
5. In 1990, Joan moved to Manchester, where she got a job as an English teacher. There she began to make her first drafts of the future Harry Potter book.
6. In the same year, Joan's mother, Anna Rowling, died of multiple sclerosis, without knowing what phenomenal success her daughter would achieve.
Rowling typed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old typewriter.
7. In 1992, the writer married journalist Jorge Arantes and a year later gave birth to a daughter, Jessica. However, the marriage was unsuccessful - in the same year the couple divorced, and Rowling returned to the UK. The writer fell into depression. She lived only on welfare and, according to her, was as poor as one can imagine.
8. Rowling typed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old typewriter. The first edition of the book was published in 1995, but no one saw the perspective in the author. In 1997, the book came out again with a circulation of only a thousand copies and became a real triumph. Rowling's book won the Children's Book Award for Best Children's Book of the Year.
9. The second and third parts of the Harry Potter books also became the "Best Children's Books of the Year" according to the Children's Book Award, and the fourth writer herself withdrew from participating in the competition to give other authors a chance.
10. Under the first publication, Rowling signed as JK Rowling, but the publishers advised her to make another signature - J. K. Rowling - to remove the name, suggesting that the target audience of the book - boys - would not want to read what a woman wrote.
11. In 1998, Warner Bros. acquired Rowling's film rights to the first two books. The first film was released in November 2001. The writer insisted that the films be made in Britain and with the participation of British actors.
12. In 2000, Rowling was awarded the Order of the British Empire.
Rowling worked on the Harry Potter novel for 17 years.
13. In the same year, she created the Volant Charitable Trust, which fights poverty and social inequality. The Foundation funds organizations that help children, single-parent families, and is also engaged in research on multiple sclerosis.
14. In 2001, Joan remarried - to the anesthesiologist Neil Michael Murray. She took her husband's surname, although she publishes books under an old pseudonym. In marriage, she had two children - son David and daughter Mackenzie, to whom her book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was dedicated.
15. Rowling worked on the Harry Potter novel for 17 years. The work was completed in February 2007.
16. In 2008, JK Rowling became the richest woman in the UK according to Forbes.
17. In 2011, Joan, along with the producers and directors of Potter, received the British Academy Film Awards for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.
18. In 2012, the first book of the writer after the Harry Potter series, Random Vacancy, was published. Over a million copies were sold in the first three weeks after its release. In the same year, the BBC decided to film the work as a TV series.
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Around the name of J.K. Rowling - the facts are clear - a new wave of hype has risen, because the first film according to her script, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, became a commercial hit in 2016 (in the "Potterian" Joan was not a screenwriter, although she advised the filmmakers ). Sequels to the fantasy blockbuster set in the Harry Potter universe have already been announced (however, more than half a century earlier). Jude Law was approved for the role of young Albus Dumbledore, and we briefly saw his opponent in Fantastic Beasts (Grindelwald is played by Johnny Depp. JK Rowling - facts confirmed by herself - continues to write about the new hero, the zoologist magician Newt, and also releases successful detectives under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.In honor of the next birthday of the British writer, we compiled this collection - 15 facts about JK Rowling that you did not know.
Inspired by Elizabeth Bennet: JK Rowling Facts
Didn't want to be "rolling"
Childhood friends of JK Rowling, a sibling from Winterbourne, had the surname "Potter". In one of the interviews, the writer said that she liked this surname much more than her own. Children often teased Joan, coming up with different combinations with the word "rolling" (her surname "Rowling" is consonant with this word in English).
Sick Rabbit
Joan wrote her first story at the age of six, it was called "Rabbit". The title character fell ill, and his friends visited him. Rowling's only reader at the time was her younger sister Dianne.
Her universities
Fun fact: J.K. Rowling didn't get into Oxford. In 1982, she took the entrance exam, and she was not accepted to the university. Instead, the future celebrity began to study French at the University of Exeter.
But in 2008, Rowling received an honorary degree from another prestigious educational institution - Harvard.
old typewriter
The first copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was typed by Joan on an old manual typewriter, which she completed in 1996.
Thanks Alice!
We might not have read a single line about Potter and his friends if not for Alice, the little daughter of the head of the Bloomsbury publishing company: it was she who was Rowling's first "critic". Mr. Newton listened to the opinion of Alice and gave the go-ahead for the publication of a modest edition of 1000 copies.
13 is a lucky number!
Prior to Bloomsbury, Rowling's debutante had run into rejections everywhere. Her novel was rejected by 12 publishers. Perseverance to the author of the "Potterian" was not to occupy, another such categoricalness could "beat off the hands"! But it’s not for nothing that Joan would definitely choose Gryffindor from the three faculties of Hogwarts - the British value courage most of all.
A little about children
Fun fact: JK Rowling is a fan of Minecraft-Wii-U-2. She plays it with her son David.
The writer's eldest daughter, Jessica, is named after British-American journalist Jessica Mitford. This woman was the idol of Rowling's youth. At the age of 19, the communist Mitford fled with her second cousin (whom she married) to take part in the Spanish Civil War.
Where did Quidditch come from
The concept of playing Quidditch came to Rowling after a scandal with her then-boyfriend in a small hotel in Manchester. By the way, Joan's favorite sport is basketball, which has something in common with Quidditch.
Twitter star
The writer willingly communicates with fans on Twitter, more than 11.3 million fans are registered on her page.
J.K. Rowling didn't read the acclaimed novel Fifty Shades of Grey, because she promised her editor not to even pick it up.
She wanted to be a Jane Austen character
Everyone knows that Hermione Granger is in many ways similar to her creator: in her school and student years, Joan was just as inquisitive and read books "binge". Rowling's favorite character is Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The author of the "Potterian" said so: "If I were a literary character, then Lizzy Bennet!".
On August 1-2, 2006, Radio City Music organized an "An Evening with Harry, Carrie and Garp" in New York, which invited three famous contemporary authors: JK Rowling, Stephen King and John Irving. They read excerpts from their works. Proceeds from the event went to the Doctors Without Borders and Haven foundations.
Dear King's Cross
Joanne Rowling's parents - a fact that she emphasized more than once - first met at London's King's Cross station. Therefore, trains to Hogwarts run from this railway station. True, the writer came up with a non-existent platform 9 ¾. Now everyone can take a picture next to the commemorative sign installed there (a luggage trolley that has half gone into the wall).
JK Rowling was born in 1965. Her mother was half French and half Scottish. As a child, the girl wrote fantastic stories.
Rowling has an eventful biography, but the rise of her career began with misfortune. When Joan divorced her first husband (who kicked her out of the house at 5 a.m.), she was left with no money until she published Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997. According to Joan, "I was as poor as you can be in modern Britain without being homeless." After parting with her husband, she became depressed and thought about suicide. The novel brought her back to life in the full sense of the word. The idea to write the story of the young magician Harry Potter came to Joan during a trip from Manchester to London in 1990, when she worked as a research assistant and secretary-translator for Amnesty International.
9 interesting facts of the biography of JK Rowling
1 As Rowling recalls, at school she had a period of passion for punk style.
2 When Joan wrote Harry Potter, she listened to Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto.
3 In June 1997 Bloomsburry published The Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. In the future, the books of the British writer about the young wizard Harry Potter were sold with a circulation of 400 million copies.
4 Joan's second husband was Neil Michael Murray, an anesthetist. They got married in 2001.
5 In 2007, Time magazine gave JK Rowling a second place Person of the Year award for the social, moral, and political inspiration that the writer has given to her fans. In 2010, the editors of leading magazines named the writer the most powerful woman in Britain.
6 JK Rowling is a multimillionaire and best selling author in the UK. Her books have sold over £238 million. In 2008, the Sunday Times published the Rich List, where Rowling's fortune was estimated at 560 million pounds, putting the writer on the 12th place in the list of the richest women in the UK.
7 The Harry Potter book series became the best-selling book series in history and served as the basis for a film series that became the highest-grossing film series in history. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (the highest-grossing film in the series) grossed over $1 billion at the box office in 2011.
8 In 2012, Forbes did not include Rowling in the ranking of the richest people, saying that she lost her billionaire status due to donations to charity. For example, J.K. Rowling supports organizations such as Laughter Relief, and in 2010 donated £10 million to the Clinic for Regenerative Neurology, which researches and treats multiple sclerosis, from which her mother, Anne Rowling, died. The clinic, created by the writer at the University of Edinburgh, bears the name of her mother. In April 2012, Joan confirmed that she had begun work on an encyclopedia of the Harry Potter universe and would donate all royalties to charity.
9 In 2013, several film companies are fighting for the right to film J.K. Rowling's new work The Cuckoo's Calling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. high-profile case: he undertakes to investigate the circumstances of the death of a famous fashion model who fell from a balcony ...
