J.K. Rowling

She was the penniless single mother who cast a spell on the world and inspired a generation to read. Twenty years since the first ‘Harry Potter’ film, Kathryn Madden examines the life of the chart-topping yet controversial author

Joanne Rowling stood on the cobbled street of Rua Duque de Saldanha, desperately gasping for breath. It was 5am in a dingy quarter of Porto, Portugal, and the 28-year-old was alone in a foreign city, kicked out of home after a heated row with her husband. Her four-month-old baby was sleeping inside with the man she feared, and all she had were the clothes on her back and a few of her nearest possessions – including the first three chapters of a story she’d been writing, scribbled on note paper and stored in a shoebox.

In that moment, as first light hit the hand-painted Portuguese tiles, she wouldn’t dare to dream that the box of notes would one day change her fate. That her story about a boy wizard, Harry Potter, would become the highest-selling book series in history; and that somewhere in the world, someone would start reading a copy every 30 seconds. The introverted redhead would be named the world’s first self-made billionaire author and add Hollywood films, musicals, theme parks and other spin-offs to her CV.

Rowling’s seven-book saga of magic, morality and mortality was not a fairytale. But as the intensely private writer rose from that slummy European street to superstardom, many would come to surmise that her own personal story indeed was.

She was born Joanne Rowling on July 31, 1965, in Yate, south-west England. Her father, Peter, was an aircraft engineer, and met her mother, Anne, while working in the Royal Navy. The family lived in a humble cottage with a cupboard under the stairs, cabinets brimming with books and an enchanting forest just down the road.