JK Rowling says mother's death inspired Harry Potter's orphan status

Jan 10, 2006, 16:01 GMT

File photo: Author of the Harry Potter books, J.K.Rowling attends the launch of the latest in the series at Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh at 00.01 Saturday 16th July 2005. EPA/CRAIG STENNETT

London - Bestselling British author J.K. Rowling has said she will finish writing her Harry Potter series this year and has already completed a new children's book involving a monster.

Rowling, 40, in a rare interview published Tuesday, spoke of her initial 'inability to cope with fame' and of the agony of her mother's death on New Year's Eve, 1990.

'The night she died I had been staying with my boyfriend's family. I had gone to bed early, ostensibly to watch 'The Man Who Would Be King', but instead I started writing', Rowling said in the interview with Tatler magazine, excerpts of which were published in the Daily Telegraph Tuesday.

'So I know I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter', said Rowling, adding that her mother's death was the inspiration for Harry's orphan status.

The death of her mother from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) when Rowling was just 25, had left her a 'wreck', said the author, who is now patron of a leading MS charity in Scotland.

Speaking of her 'struggle to cope with the enormous pressure of fame', Rowling said she had been 'in denial' about her ability to cope with the limelight.

'I have never said this before, but when I was repeatedly asked, 'How are you coping?', I would say 'fine' but I was lying to myself', said Rowling.

'I had lived under a rock for such a long time and suddenly someone had lifted it off and was shining a torch on to me. I was petrified and didn't know how to handle it.'

Rowling, whose books have made her a multi-millionaire, said she loves shoes and handbags but still has 'a limit to what I think would be justified to spend on a frivolity.'