User:AleatoryPonderings/Rowling lede

Joanne Rowling, CH OBE HonFRSE FRCPE FRSL (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ ROH-ling; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British writer and philanthropist. She wrote the seven-volume Harry Potter series, published from from 1997 to 2007. Born in Yate, Rowling grew up in a middle-class family in several English towns. She graduated from the University of Exeter in 1987 and worked temp jobs thereafter. The idea for the characters of Harry Potter came to her while she waited on a delayed train in 1990. Her mother's death in late 1990 deeply affected Rowling and her writing. In the years that followed, Rowling's first child was born and she divorced her first husband. The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was published in 1997 as she experienced relative poverty as a single parent. Seven years later, Forbes named Rowling the "first billion-dollar author". The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, as Robert Galbraith.

Rowling's Harry Potter series was published over ten years, concluding in 2007 with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It follows a boy named Harry Potter as he attends Hogwarts, a school for wizards, and battles Lord Voldemort. Its influences include the Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story; school stories; European fairy tales; and Christian allegory. Death and the divide between good and evil are central themes. Her series has been enormously successful: it has sold 500 million copies or more, been translated into at least 60 languages, and was adapted into a film series. It revived fantasy as a genre in the children's market, spawned a host of imitators, and inspired an active fandom. Critical reception has been more mixed. Many reviewers see Rowling's prose and plots as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive.

Rowling is a philanthropist and active political commentator. She co-founded the charity Lumos and established the Volant Charitable Trust, named for her mother, whose love of reading and death greatly influenced her. Rowling's charitable giving centres on medical causes and supporting at-risk women and children. Rowling has won many accolades for her writing and charitable work. She was named to the Order of the British Empire in 2000 and was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2017 for services to literature and philanthropy. In politics, she opposed Scottish independence and Brexit and has criticised the press. Since late 2019, she has publicly expressed her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights. These have been criticised as transphobic by LGBT rights organisations and some feminists, but have received support from other feminists and individuals.

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