Name: Joanne K. Rowling

   Country: United Kingdom

   Language: English

   Biography: 
J.K. (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling was born in 1965 and grew up in Chepstow, Gwent. She left Chepstow to study French at Exeter University, where her course included a year in Paris. As a postgraduate, she moved to London to work at Amnesty International doing research into human rights abuses in Francophone Africa. She started writing Harry Potter after the idea occurred to her on an interminable Manchester to London train journey. Jo then moved to north Portugal to teach English as a foreign language, married, got pregnant, and kept writing. By the time her daughter was born, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was one-quarter finished. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by Bloomsbury Children's Books in June 1997 to great critical acclaim, and has since won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Gold Medal (9—11 years), the FCBG Children's Book Award (overall winner), the Birmingham Cable Children's Book Award, the Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year, the British Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year and the Sheffield Children's Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal (received 'Commended'). The book has also won two extremely prestigious foreign awards — Sorcieres Prix 1998 in France and the Premio Cento per la Letteratura Infantile 1998 in Italy. The second title in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and was no. 1 in the overall adult hardback bestseller charts for a month after publication. It has since won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (9—11 years), the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book Award, the FCBG Children's Book Award and the British Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year, plus been shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award, the Sheffield Children's Book Award, and the Guardian Fiction Prize. J.K. Rowling was voted BA Author of the Year in 1999. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published on 8 July 1999 to nationwide acclaim and massive press attention, spending its first four weeks at no.1 in the hardback bestseller charts, while Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone simultaneously topped the paperback charts. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (9—11 years), and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the Children's Book Award, Sheffield Children's Book Award, the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Fiction Prize. J.K. Rowling was voted author of the year at the 1999 British Book Awards (Nibbies) and she recently won BA Author of the Year for the second year running. She was awarded an OBE for services to children's literature in June 2000. The fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was published on 8 July 2000 with a record first print run of 1 million copies, and quickly broke all records for the greatest number of books sold on the first day of publication, as well as shooting to the top of the bestseller charts. J.K. Rowling wrote two books in aid of Comic Relief, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch through the Ages which were published in March 2001. The fifth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was published on June 21st 2003. The Latin and Welsh translations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone were published by Bloomsbury in July 2003, and the Irish Gaelic and Ancient Greek translations in the Summer of 2004. The Scottish Gaelic translation at a date to be confirmed. All four of the published Harry Potter novels by JK Rowling have been voted into the BBC Big Read's top 100, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has been voted into the top 21. The list was voted for by people in the UK.