Like that of her own character， Harry Potter， J.K. Rowling’s life has the luster of a fairy tale. Divorced， living on public assistance in a tiny Edinburgh flat with her infant daughter， Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at a table in a cafe during her daughter’s naps—and it was Harry Potter that rescued her.

Joanne Kathleen Rowling entered the world in Chipping Sodbury General Hospital in Bristol， England， a fitting beginning for someone who would later enjoy making up strange names for people， places and games played on flying broomsticks. Her younger sister Di was born just under two years later.

Rowling remembers that she always wanted to write and that the first story she actually wrote down， when she was five or six， was a story about a rabbit called Rabbit. Many of her favorite memories center around reading—hearing The Wind in the Willows read aloud by her father when she had the measles， enjoying the fantastic adventure stories of E. Nesbit， reveling in the magical world of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia， and her favorite story of all， The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.

At Exeter University Rowling took her degree in French and spent one year studying in Paris. After college she moved to London to work for Amnesty International as a researcher and bilingual secretary. The best thing about working in an office， she has said， was typing up stories on the computer when no one was watching. During this time， on a particularly long train ride from Manchester to London in the summer of 1990， the idea came to her of a boy who is a wizard and doesn’t know it. He attends a school for wizardry--she could see him very plainly in her mind. By the time the train pulled into King’s Cross Station four hours later， many of the characters and the early stages of the plot were fully formed in her head. The story took further shape as she continued working on it in pubs and cafes over her lunch hours.

In 1992 Rowling left off working in offices and moved to Portugal to teach English as a Second Language. In spite of her students making jokes about her name （this time they called her“Rolling Stone”）， she enjoyed teaching. She worked afternoons and evenings， leaving mornings free for writing. After her marriage to a Portuguese TV journalist ended in divorce， Rowling returned to Britain with her infant daughter and a suitcase full of Harry Potter notes and chapters. She settled in Edinburgh to be near her sister and set out to finish the book before looking for a teaching job. Wheeling her daughter’s carriage around the city to escape their tiny， cold apartment， she would duck into coffee shops to write when the baby fell asleep. In this way she finished the book and started sending it to publishers. It was rejected several times before she found an London agent， chosen because she liked his name--Christopher Little， who sold the manuscript to Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

Rowling was working as a French teacher when she heard that her book about the boy wizard had been accepted for publication. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in June 1997 and achieved almost instant success. With the publication of the American edition， retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone， in 1998， Rowling’s books continued to make publishing history. Harry Potter climbed to the top of all the bestseller lists for children’s and adult books. Indeed， the story of the boy wizard， his Cinderlad childhood， and his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry caught the imagination of readers of all ages. In Britain a separate edition of the first book appeared with a more“adult”dust jacket so that grown-ups reading it on trains and subways would not have to hide their copy behind a newspaper.

Jo Rowling lives in Edinburgh， Scotland， with her daughter Jessica and continues to work on writing the seven-book saga of Harry Potter.

J.K.羅琳的生活展現(xiàn)出童話般的光芒，如同她所創(chuàng)造的魔法小巫師——哈利·波特。經歷了一次失敗的婚姻后，這個靠救濟金過日子，獨自撫養(yǎng)女兒的單親媽媽和出生不久的女兒搬到了愛丁堡的一個狹小的公寓里。為了逃離又小又冷的房間，她常待在住家附近的咖啡館里，待女兒熟睡后開始寫作，女兒睡多久，她就寫多久。就在這個小咖啡館里，她寫出了《哈利·波特與魔法石》，塑造了那個將她帶離窘境的小巫師。

喬安·凱瑟琳·羅琳出生在英格蘭的一家綜合醫(yī)院里，這對一個喜歡給別人起奇怪名字，喜歡坐著掃帚滿場飛奔的小姑娘來說，是個合適的開始。她的妹妹兩年后來到這個世上。

羅琳從小就喜歡寫作，五、六歲時就寫了一篇跟兔子有關的故事。小時候美好的記憶似乎總是圍繞閱讀的——得麻疹時聽爸爸大聲講故事，讀奇異的冒險故事，沉浸在奇妙的故事世界里。

大學里，羅琳主修法語，在巴黎留學一年。畢業(yè)后，她搬去倫敦擔任調查員和雙語秘書。羅琳回憶說，那段時間最有趣的事情就是趁沒人的時候在電腦上打小說。1990年，時值24歲的羅琳坐在由曼撤斯特出發(fā)前往倫敦的火車上，哈利·波特闖入了她的生命。她可以在腦海里清晰地勾畫他的模樣，看到他進入魔法學校。四小時后，當火車駛入王十字車站時，大部分人物和故事的前期框架已經在她的腦海里形成了。當她午餐時間坐在咖啡館里繼續(xù)構思時，故事的結構變得更加清晰。

1992年，羅琳結束了白領生涯，前往葡萄牙做英語教師。盡管學生們常拿她的名字開玩笑，叫她滾石（英語中Rowling與rolling同音），她仍然非常喜歡教書。她在下午和晚上去學校工作，上午用來寫作。不久后，她與一名葡萄牙的電視臺記者結婚，但這段婚姻最終以離婚告終。離婚后，羅琳帶著女兒和滿滿一箱子哈利·波特的筆記與手稿回到了英國。為了能住得靠近妹妹，羅琳在愛丁堡定居下來，準備在找新工作前完成這部小說。她常常推著女兒的手推車四處閑逛，只是為了逃離又小又冷的公寓。她會躲到咖啡館里，趁女兒睡著時寫作。就這樣，羅琳在咖啡館里完成了哈利·波特的創(chuàng)作，開始尋找出版商。但她的稿件被多次退回，直到她找到了一個倫敦的經紀人。羅琳之所以會找到他，僅僅是因為喜歡他可愛的名字—克里斯多夫·里特（Christopher Little）。

當羅琳得知這本關于小巫師的小說被出版商接受時，她正在一所學校教法語。《哈利·波特》才一出版，就大獲成功。隨著哈利·波特1998年在美國的出版，羅琳的書繼續(xù)創(chuàng)造著出版界的歷史。哈利·波特登上了兒童與成人書籍的最佳銷售榜的首位。確實，這個小巫師的故事，他灰姑娘一樣的童年，和他在霍格華茲魔法學校的歷險引發(fā)了各個年齡讀者的豐富想象力。在英國，出版商出版了一種更成人化封面的版本，使得大人們能在火車或者地鐵里閱讀而不用把書藏在報紙后面。

現(xiàn)在，J.A.羅琳和她的女兒捷西卡住在蘇格蘭的愛丁堡，繼續(xù)完成哈利·波特的冒險故事。