Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling's life has the luster( [lus·ter || 'lʌstə(r)]n. 光泽; 光彩; 光辉; 荣耀, 荣光) 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([mea·sles || 'miːzlz]n. 麻疹; 包虫病; 风疹), enjoying the fantastic adventure stories of E. Nesbit, reveling([rev·el || 'revl]n. 狂欢; 闹饮; 欢宴; 喜庆狂欢活动v. 狂欢作乐, 着迷, 得意
) 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(躲避) 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(外壳) 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( [sa·ga || 'sɑːgə]n. 传说, 冒险故事, 英雄事迹) of Harry Potter.
J.K.罗琳的生活展现出童话般的光芒，如同她所创造的魔法小巫师—哈利·波特。经历了一次失败的婚姻后，这个靠救济金过日子，独自抚养女儿的单亲妈妈和出生不久的女儿搬到了爱丁堡的一个狭小的公寓里。为了逃离又小又冷的房间，她常待在住家附近的咖啡馆里，待女儿熟睡后开始写作，女儿睡多久，她就写多久。就在这个小咖啡馆里，她写出了《哈利·波特与魔法石》，塑造了那个将她带离窘境的小巫师。
乔安·凯瑟琳·罗琳出生在英格兰的一家综合医院里，这对一个喜欢给别人起奇怪名字，喜欢坐着扫帚满场飞奔的小姑娘来说，是个合适的开始。她的妹妹两年后来到这个世上。
罗琳从小就喜欢写作，五、六岁时就写了一篇跟兔子有关的故事。小时候美好的记忆似乎总是围绕阅读的—得麻疹时听爸爸大声讲故事，读奇异的冒险故事，沉浸在奇妙的故事世界里。
大学里，罗琳主修法语，在巴黎留学一年。毕业后，她搬去伦敦担任调查员和双语秘书。罗琳回忆说，那段时间最有趣的事情就是趁没人的时候在电脑上打小说。1990年，时值24岁的罗琳坐在由曼撤斯特出发前往伦敦的火车上，哈利·波特闯入了她的生命。她可以在脑海里清晰地勾画他的模样，看到他进入魔法学校。四小时后，当火车驶入王十字车站时，大部分人物和故事的前期框架已经在她的脑海里形成了。当她午餐时间坐在咖啡馆里继续构思时，故事的结构变得更加清晰。
1992年，罗琳结束了白领生涯，前往葡萄牙做英语教师。尽管学生们常拿她的名字开玩笑，叫她滚石（英语中Rowling与rolling同音），她仍然非常喜欢教书。她在下午和晚上去学校工作，上午用来写作。不久后，她与一名葡萄牙的电视台记者结婚，但这段婚姻最终以离婚告终。离婚后，罗琳带着女儿和满满一箱子哈利·波特的笔记与手稿回到了英国。为了能住得靠近妹妹，罗琳在爱丁堡定居下来，准备在找新工作前完成这部小说。她常常推着女儿的手推车四处闲逛，只是为了逃离又小又冷的公寓。她会躲到咖啡馆里，趁女儿睡着时写作。就这样，罗琳在咖啡馆里完成了哈利·波特的创作，开始寻找出版商。但她的稿件被多次退回，直到她找到了一个伦敦的经纪人。罗琳之所以会找到他，仅仅是因为喜欢他可爱的名字—克里斯多夫·里特（Christopher Little）。
当罗琳得知这本关于小巫师的小说被出版商接受时，她正在一所学校教法语。《哈利·波特》才一出版，就大获成功。随着哈利·波特1998年在美国的出版，罗琳的书继续创造着出版界的历史。哈利·波特登上了儿童与成人书籍的最佳销售榜的首位。确实，这个小巫师的故事，他灰姑娘一样的童年，和他在霍格华兹魔法学校的历险引发了各个年龄读者的丰富想象力。在英国，出版商出版了一种更成人化封面的版本，使得大人们能在火车或者地铁里阅读而不用把书藏在报纸后面。
现在，J.A.罗琳和她的女儿捷西卡住在苏格兰的爱丁堡，继续完成哈利·波特的冒险故事。