Like that of her own character， Harry Potter， J.K.Rowling’s life has the luster① 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.
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.
At 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 wizard② 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 plot③ 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. 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 duck④ 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 manuscript⑤ 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 achieved almost instant success. With the publication of the American edition， 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.
Rowling lives in Edinburgh， Scotland， with her daughter Jessica and continues to work on writing the saga⑥ of Harry Potter.
① lustern. 光泽，光辉，光彩
② wizardn. 男巫，术士
③ plotn. （小说、戏剧等的） 情节
④ duckv. 躲避，回避
⑤ manuscriptn. 手稿，原稿
⑥ sagan. 英雄事迹，冒险小说
梦想与传奇
就像她创造的主人公哈利·波特一样，罗琳本人的生活也绽放出童话般的光彩。离婚以后，罗琳和刚刚出生不久的女儿住在爱丁堡的一个狭小的公寓里，靠领救济金过活，她经常等女儿熟睡后，呆在附近的一个咖啡馆里写作，就这样，她写出了《哈利·波特与魔法石》，是哈利·波特他挽救了她。
罗琳记得自己一直很喜欢写作，而她真正意义上的第一个故事是在她五六岁的时候，那是一个与兔子有关的故事，名字就叫做《兔子》。
大学里，罗琳主修法语，花费了一年的时间去巴黎留学。毕业之后，她搬往伦敦担任调查员和双语秘书。对她而言，那段时间最好的事情就是当没有人在的时候往电脑上打小说。就在这个期间，1990年夏天，罗琳坐在由曼彻斯特开往伦敦的火车上，一个带着魔法但是并不知道的小男孩闯进了她的脑海中。她可以在脑海里清晰地勾勒他的模样，看到他进入魔法学校。四小时以后，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基本形成了。当她在午餐时间，继续坐在咖啡馆里构思时，故事的结构变得更加完整清晰。
1992年，罗琳结束了白领生涯，搬移到葡萄牙做英语教师。她在下午和晚上工作，利用上午的闲暇时间进行写作。在与一名葡萄牙的电视台记者结婚，但不久又分手以后，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。为了逃离又小又冷的公寓，她常常推着女儿的手推车四处闲逛，并且经常躲到咖啡馆里，趁着女儿睡着的时候写作。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，他将她的手稿卖给了布鲁姆波利儿童书店。
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销售排行榜之首。
罗琳和她的女儿捷西卡住在苏格兰的爱丁堡，继续创作哈利·波特的传奇故事。