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Rowling,[5] is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.[6] They have become the best-selling book series in history,[7] and been the basis for a series of films which has become the highest-grossing film series in history.[8] Rowling had overall approval on the scripts[9] as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment. [10] Born in Yate, Gloucestershire, Rowling was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for the Harry Potter series on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990.[11] The seven-year period that followed entailed the death of her mother, divorce from her first husband and poverty until Rowling finished the first novel in the series,Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997). Rowling subsequently published 6 sequelsthe last, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)as well as 3 supplements to the series. In 2012, Rowling parted with her agency and resumed writing in the form of atragicomedy novel aimed at adult readership, entitled The Casual Vacancy. Rowling has said she is currently working on two booksone aimed for adults, the other for children younger than the Harry Potter audience, and she expects the latter to be published first. Rowling has led a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on state benefits to multi-millionaire status within five years. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling author since records began, with sales in excess of 238m. [12] The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at 560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in the United Kingdom.[13] Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007,[14] and TIME magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans.[15] In October 2010, Rowling was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors.[16] She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group).
Contents
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1 Name 2 Biography
o o o o o o o o o
2.1 Birth and family 2.2 Childhood and education 2.3 Inspiration and mother's death 2.4 Marriage, divorce and single parenthood 2.5 Harry Potter 2.6 Harry Potter films 2.7 Success 2.8 Remarriage and family 2.9 The Casual Vacancy
3 Subsequent writing
4 Philanthropy
o o o
4.1 Anti-poverty and children's welfare 4.2 Multiple sclerosis 4.3 Other philanthropic work
5 Influences 6 Views
o o
7 Legal disputes 8 Relationship with the press 9 Awards and honours 10 Publications
o o o o o
10.1 Harry Potter series 10.2 Other children's books 10.3 Adult books 10.4 Short story 10.5 Articles
Name
Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", pronounced like rolling,[17] her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply "Joanne Rowling". Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling.[18][19] She calls herself "Jo" and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry."[20] Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business.[21][22] During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling.[23] In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.[24]
Biography
Birth and family
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer,[25] and Anne Rowling (ne Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol.[26] Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964.[27] They married on 14 March 1965.[27] Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran.[28] Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-leComte during the First World War.[29]
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee."[17] At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales.[26] When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind", gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels.[34] Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books. [35] Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasnt particularly happy. I think its a dreadful time of life."[25] She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him).[25] She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department.[36] Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Pottercharacter] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." [37] Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English".[25] Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."[38] Of her musical tastes of the time, she said "My favourite group in the world is The Smiths. And when I was going through a punky phase, it was The Clash."[39] Rowling studied A Levels in English, French and German,[40] achieving two A's and a B[27] and was Head Girl.[25] In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not accepted[25] and read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter, which she says was a "bit of a shock" as she "was expecting to be amongst lots of similar people thinking radical thoughts." Once she made friends with "some like-minded people" she says she began to enjoy herself.[41] Of her time at Exeter, Martin Sorrell, then a professor of French at the university, recalled "a quietly competent student, with a denim jacket and dark hair, who, in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary." [25] Although her own memory is of "doing no work whatsoever" and instead she "wore heavy eyeliner, listened to the Smiths, and read Dickens and Tolkien".[25] After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986[25] and moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.[42] In 1998, Rowling wrote a short-essay about her time studying Classics entitled "What was the Name of that Nymph Again? or Greek and Roman Studies Recalled", it was published by the University of Exeter's journal Pegasus.[43]
but I do think that this was probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. Perhaps, if I had slowed down the ideas to capture them on paper, I might have stifled some of them (although sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen). I began to write 'Philosopher's Stone' that very evening, although those first few pages bear no resemblance to anything in the finished book When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately.[26][46] In December of that year, Rowling's mother died, after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis.[26] Rowling commented, "I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter."[22] Rowling said this death heavily affected her writing[22][47] and that she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt. [48]
Harry Potter
Main article: Harry Potter
"The Elephant House" one of the cafs in Edinburgh in which Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel.[61]
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter.[62] Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, a reader who had been asked to review the book's first three chapters, the Fulhambased Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript.[27] A year later she was finally given the green light (and a 1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London.[27][63] The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.[64] Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children's books. [65] Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an 8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing.[66] In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between 16,000 and 25,000.[67] Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestl Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year, and later, the Children's Book Award. In early 1998, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. In Rowling's own words, she "nearly died" when she heard the news. [68] In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher's Stone in the US under the title ofHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: a change Rowling claims she now regrets and would have fought if she had been in a better position at the time. [69] Rowling moved from her flat with the money from the Scholastic sale, into 19 Hazelbank Terrace in Edinburgh. Her neighbors were initially unaware that she was the author of the Harry Potter series, although according to biographer Connie Ann Kirk, "most treated her with respect and gave her the distance they would want themselves".[59] Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and again Rowling won the Smarties Prize.[70] In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running.[71] She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.[72] The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000 and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year.[73] In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records.[73] Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot ... I've had some of my blackest moments with this book ... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me."[74] Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.[75] A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied.[76] Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."[77]
The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release.[78]While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing."[79] She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban.[80] In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.[81] The title of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was revealed on 21 December 2006 to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.[82] In February 2007 it was reported that Rowling wrote on a bust in her hotel room at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh that she had finished the seventh book in that room on 11 January 2007. [83] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007 (0:01 BST)[84] and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time.[85] It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States.[85] She wrote the last chapter of the book "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series.[86] During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book.[87] Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."[87] In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rowling gave credit to her mother for the success of the series saying that "the books are what they are because she died...because I loved her and she died."[88] Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated $15 billion,[89] and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history.[85][90] The series, totalling 4,195 pages,[91] has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.[92] The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television,[93] although it is reported that despite the huge uptake of the books, adolescent reading has continued to decline.[94]
Rowling had gained some creative control on the films, reviewing all the scripts [109] as well as acting as a producer on the final twopart instalment, Deathly Hallows.[110] On her website, Rowling revealed that she was considered to have a cameo in the first film as Lily Potter in the Mirror of Erised scene. Rowling, however, turned down the role, stating that she was not cut out to be an actor and, "would have messed it up somehow".[111] The role ultimately went to Geraldine Somerville. Rowling, producers David Heyman and David Barron, along with directors David Yates, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuarn collected the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in honour of the Harry Potter film franchise.[112]
Success
In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books,[113] the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world.[114] Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire.[115] In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain.[13] In 2012, Forbes removed Rowling from their rich list, claiming that her over $160 million in charitable donations and the high tax rate in the UK meant she was no longer a billionaire.[116] In February 2013 she was assessed as the 13th most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.[117] In 2001, Rowling purchased a 19th-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland.[118] Rowling also owns a 4.5 million ($7 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London,[119] on a street with 24-hour security.[120] Rowling owned a house in the Merchiston area ofEdinburgh between 1999 and 2012, selling the eight-bedroomed house for over 2.25 million.[121] She currently lives in another property in Barnton, on the outskirts of the city.[121]
Subsequent writing
In an interview with Stephen Fry in 2005, Rowling claimed that she would much prefer to write any subsequent books under a pseudonym; however, she conceded to Jeremy Paxman in 2003 that if she did, the press would probably "find out in seconds."[136] In
2006, Rowling revealed that she had finished writing a few short stories and another children's book (a "political fairy story") about a monster, aimed at a younger audience than Harry Potter readers.[137] In July 2007, Rowling said that she wants to dedicate "lots" of her time to her family, but is currently "sort of writing two things", one for children and the other for adults. [138] She did not give any details about the two projects but did state that she was excited because the two book situation reminded her of writing the Philosopher's Stone, explaining how she was then writing two books until Harry took over. [139] In November 2007, Rowling said that she was working on another book, a "half-finished book for children that I think will probably be the next thing I publish."[140] In March 2008, Rowling revealed in an interview that she had returned to writing in Edinburgh cafs, intent on composing a new novel for children. "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy", she told The Daily Telegraph. "I am very good at finding a suitable caf; I blend into the crowd and, of course, I don't sit in the middle of the bar staring all around me." [141] Rowling also confirmed that her "political fairy tale" for children was nearing completion.[142] In September 2012, Rowling stated that she was currently working on two books for readership younger than Harry Potter, as well as her next adult novel although she had written only "a couple of chapters," the story "is pretty well plotted". [25] She maintained in an interview with The Guardian that one of the two books for much younger children is the "political fairy tale" she spoke of previously, although she expects to release the other book as her next project. [24] At the Cheltenham Literature Festival on 6 October 2012 she said that she had a couple of things on her laptop aimed at a slightly younger age group than Harry Potter which are "nearly done".[143]
Philanthropy
In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget of 5.1 million to combat poverty and social inequality. The fund also gives to organisations that aid children, one parent families, and multiple sclerosis research. [153] Rowling said, "I think you have a moral responsibility when you've been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently."[138]
($30 million) for the fund. The 10.8 million ($20 million) they have raised outside the UK have been channelled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis.[158] In 2005, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level Group (now Lumos).[159] In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in mental institutions for children.[160] To further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for 1.95 million by on-line bookseller Amazon.com on 13 December 2007, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction. [161][162] Rowling commented, "This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help. It means Christmas has come early to me."[162][163] Rowling gave away the remaining six copies to those who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books.[162] In 2008, Rowling agreed to publish the book with the proceeds going to the Children's High Level Group.[161] On 1 June 2010 (International Children's Day), Lumos launched an annual initiative Light a Birthday Candle for Lumos.[164] To support the campaign on 1 June 2011, JK Rowling gave an interview to Redonline.co.uk In July 2012, Rowling was featured at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London where she read a few lines from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan as part of a tribute to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. An inflatable representation of Lord Voldemort and other children's literary characters accompanied her reading. [165]
Multiple sclerosis
Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis, from which her mother suffered before her death in 1990. In 2006, Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, later named the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.[166] In 2010 she donated a further 10 million to the centre.[167] For reasons unknown, Scotland, Rowling's country of adoption, has the highest rate of multiple sclerosis in the world. In 2003, Rowling took part in a campaign to establish a national standard of care for MS sufferers. [168] In April 2009, she announced that she was withdrawing her support for Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, citing her inability to resolve an ongoing feud between the organisation's northern and southern branches that had sapped morale and led to several resignations. [168]
Influences
See also: Harry Potter influences and analogues Rowling has named Communist and civil rights activist Jessica Mitford as "[her] most influential writer" saying, "Jessica Mitford has been my heroine since I was 14 years old, when I overheard my formidable great-aunt discussing how Mitford had run away at the age of 19 to fight with the Reds in the Spanish Civil War", and claims what inspired her about Mitford was that she was "incurably and instinctively rebellious, brave, adventurous, funny and irreverent, she liked nothing better than a good fight, preferably against a pompous and hypocritical target."[175] Rowling has described Jane Austen as her favourite author,[176] calling Emma her favourite book in O magazine.[177] As a child, Rowling has said her early influences included The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, and Manxmouse by Paul Gallico.[178]
Views
Politics
See also: Politics of Harry Potter In September 2008, on the eve of the Labour Party Conference, Rowling announced that she had donated 1 million to the Labour Party, and publicly endorsed Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown over Tory challenger David Cameron, saying in a statement: I believe that poor and vulnerable families will fare much better under the Labour Party than they would under a Cameronled Conservative Party. Gordon Brown has consistently prioritised and introduced measures that will save as many children as possible from a life lacking in opportunity or choice. The Labour government has reversed the long-term trend in child poverty, and is one of the leading EU countries in combating child poverty. David Cameron's promise of tax perks for the married, on the other hand, is reminiscent of the Conservative government I experienced as a lone parent. It sends the message that the Conservatives still believe a childless, dual-income, but married couple is more deserving of a financial pat on the head than those struggling, as I once was, to keep their families afloat in difficult times.[179] Rowling is a close friend of Sarah Brown, wife of Gordon Brown, whom she met when they collaborated on a charitable project (see above). When Brown's son Fraser was born in 2003, Rowling was one of the first to visit her in the hospital. [180] Rowling discussed the 2008 United States presidential election with the Spanish-language newspaper El Pas. She said she was obsessed with the United States elections because they would have a profound effect on the rest of the world. In February 2008, she said that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would be "extraordinary" in the White House. In the same interview, she also said her hero was Robert F. Kennedy.[181] In April 2010, Rowling published an article in The Times in which she heavily criticised Cameron's plan to encourage married couples to stay together by offering them a 150 annual tax credit. Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say "it's not the money, it's the message". When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money. If Mr Cameron's only practical advice to women living in poverty, the sole carers of their children, is "get married, and we'll give you 150", he reveals himself to be completely ignorant of their true situation. How many prospective husbands did I ever meet, when I was the single mother of a baby, unable to work, stuck inside my flat, night after night, with barely enough money for life's necessities? Should I have proposed to the youth who broke in through my kitchen window at 3 am? Half a billion pounds, to send a message would it not be more cost-effective, more personal, to send all the lower-income married people flowers?[182] As a resident of Scotland, Rowling is eligible to vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, and intends to vote in favour of the union.[24]
Religion
Main article: Religious debates over the Harry Potter series Over the years, some religious people have decried Rowling's books for supposedly promoting witchcraft; however, Rowling identifies as a Christian. She attended a Church of Scotland congregation while writing Harry Potter and her eldest daughter, Jessica, was baptised there.[183] "I go to church myself", she says, "I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion."[184] She once said, "I believe in God, not magic."[185] Early on she felt that if readers knew of her Christian beliefs they would be able to "guess what is coming in the books."[186] In 2007, Rowling described her religious background in an interview with the Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant:[187] I was officially raised in the Church of England, but I was actually more of a freak in my family. We didn't talk about religion in our home. My father didn't believe in anything, neither did my sister. My mother would incidentally visit the church, but mostly during Christmas. And I was immensely curious. From when I was 13, 14 I went to church alone. I found it very interesting what was being said there, and I believed in it. When I went to university, I became more critical. I got more annoyed with the smugness of religious people and I went to church less and less. Now I'm at the point where I started: yes, I believe. And yes, I go to the church. A
Protestant church here in Edinburgh. My husband is also raised Protestant, but he comes from a very strict Scottish group. One where they couldn't sing and talk. Rowling has occasionally expressed ambivalence about her religious faith. In a 2006 interview with Tatler magazine, Rowling noted that, "like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me."[22] In a British documentary, JK Rowling: A Year in the Life, when asked if she believed in God, she said, "Yes. I do struggle with it; I couldn't pretend that I'm not doubt-ridden about a lot of things and that would be one of them but I would say yes." When asked if she believed in an afterlife, she said, "Yes; I think I do."[188] She further said, "It's something that I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that's very obvious within the books."[189] In a 2008 interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pas, Rowling said, "I feel very drawn to religion, but at the same time I feel a lot of uncertainty. I live in a state of spiritual flux. I believe in the permanence of the soul."[190] In an interview with the Today Show in July 2007, she said, "...until we reached Book Seven, views of what happens after death and so on... would give away a lot of what was coming. So... yes, my belief and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book."[191] In a 2012 radio interview withMark Lawson she said she was a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a province of the Anglican Communion.[192]
Legal disputes
Main article: Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series Rowling, her publishers, and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyright. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the appearance of a number of locally produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, sparking efforts to ban or contain them. [193] Another area of legal dispute involves a series of injunctions obtained by Rowling and her publishers to prohibit anyone from reading her books before their official release date.[194]The injunction drew fire from civil liberties and free speech campaigners and sparked debates over the "right to read".[195][196]
into a photo opportunity in exchange for the return of a stolen manuscript. [207] Rowling claimed she had to leave her former home in Merchiston, Edinburgh because of press intrusion.[207] In November 2012, Rowling wrote an article for The Guardian in reaction to David Cameron's decision to not implement the full recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, saying she felt "duped and angry".[208]