Joanne Rowling, OBE (born 31 July 1965) is an English fiction writer who writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has gained international attention, won multiple awards, and sold over 375 million copies worldwide. In February 2004, Forbes magazine estimated her fortune at £576 million (just over US$1 billion), making her the first person to become a US-dollar billionaire by writing books. Rowling earned US$75 million in 2005. In 2006, Forbes named her the second richest female entertainer in the world, behind talk show host Oprah Winfrey
Joanne Rowling was born at Yate, northeast of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, England on 31 July 1965. Her sister Dianne (Di) was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four where she attended St Michael's Primary School, later moving to Tutshill, near Chepstow, South Wales at the age of nine. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College. Rowling was good with languages, but did not excel at sports and mathematics. There are numerous Welsh references to places, things and people in Harry Potter, which could be attributed to her time in Chepstow.
In December 1990, Rowling’s mother succumbed to a 10-year-long battle with multiple sclerosis. Rowling commented, “I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter.
After studying French and Classics at the University of Exeter (she had previously applied to Oxford but was turned down), with a year of study in Paris, she moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. During this period, while she was on a four-hour delayed-train trip between Manchester and London, she had the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began writing immediately.
Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there, she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes on 16 October 1992. They had one child, Jessica, who was named after Rowling’s heroine, Jessica Mitford. They divorced in 1993 after a fight in which Jorge threw her out of the house.
In December 1994, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near Rowling’s sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. Unemployed and living on state benefits, she completed her first novel. She did much of the work in the Elephant House café whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. There was a rumour that she wrote in local cafés to escape from her unheated flat, but in a 2001 BBC interview Rowling remarked, “I am not stupid enough to rent an unheated flat in Edinburgh in midwinter. It had heating.”j K.罗琳（J.K.Rowling）,英国女作家,本名乔安妮·凯瑟琳·罗琳
24岁那年,罗琳在曼彻斯特前往伦敦的火车旅途中,一个瘦弱、戴着眼镜的黑发小巫师,一直在车窗外对着她微笑.他一下子闯进了她的生命,使她萌生了创作哈利·波特的念头.虽然当时她的手边没有纸和笔,但她开始天马行空地想象,终于把这个哈利·波特的男孩故事推向了世界.于是,哈利·波特诞生了——一个10岁小男孩,瘦小的个子,黑色乱蓬蓬的头发,明亮的绿色眼睛,戴着圆形眼镜,前额上有一道细长、闪电状的伤疤……哈利·波特成为风靡全球的童话人物.