J.K. Rowling is the pen name she uses as a writer. The J is for Joanne, her real first name, but she prefers to be called Jo. Apparently, people only call her Joanne when they’re angry with her. The K is made up. Her publisher asked her to write using a name with two initials, but she didn’t have a middle name.
J.K.罗琳是她的笔名。J代表她的名乔安妮,但她喜欢人们叫她乔。只有人们对她表示愤慨时才会叫她乔安妮。K是自己编造的。出版商要求她使用两个首字母,罗琳没有中间名。
Jo did a few different things before she struck upon the idea of writing children’s books. She worked as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International and as an English teacher in Portugal. The idea for the Harry Potter novels came from nowhere while she was on a train to London. She said, “The characters and situations came flooding into my head”.
在编写儿童读物之前,她从事过一些其它行业。她曾担任过研究员,特赦国际组织的双语秘书,也曾前往葡萄牙教授英语。在前往伦敦的火车上,她突然想要撰写哈利波特小说。她称这些角色和场景突然浮现在我的眼前。
Seven Potter novels later and Rowling is one of the richest women in the world. In fact, she is the first novelist ever to become a billionaire from writing. Her rags to riches story is a fantasy story in itself. She was on government handouts while writing her first novel. Her last four books broke records for the fastest sellers in literary history.
七部哈利波特小说问世后,罗琳成为了全球最富有女性之一。事实上,她也是首位亿万富翁小说家。她从无到有的故事本身就是传奇。在撰写第一部小说时,她依靠政府补贴过活。她的后四部小说也打破了文学史上销售最快纪录。
Today she devotes much of her time to many charitable causes. She famously demanded that Coca-Cola donate $18 million to the Reading is Fundamental charity if it wanted a tie-up with the Potter movies. The future? In March 2008, she said: "I will continue writing for children because that's what I enjoy".
如今,她将大部分时间投身于慈善事业。她曾表示,要想拿到波特电影营销权,可口可乐就要先向“阅读是基础”慈善组织捐款1800万美元。那么未来呢?2008年3月,她表示:“我将继续为儿童写书,因为这是我的最爱。”