J.K. Rowling (1965-)
Joanne Murray, née Rowling, is the author of the popular and controversial Harry Potter series. She was born on July 31 in the county of Gloucestershire, England, and she and her family moved to the village of Winterbourne when she was four years old; five years later, though, they moved again, this time to the town of Tutshill. In 1990 she moved to Portugal as a teacher, and there married journalist Jorge Arantes. They had one daughter, but separated only a year after their marriage; Rowling returned to the U.K. with her child and worked on the completion of her first Harry Potter novel, which was published in 1997. In 2001 she remarried, and two years later her son David was born; in 2005, she gave birth to her daughter Mackenzie.