JK Rowling has written a Harry Potter prequel.
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The work – which is only 800 words long and appears hand-written on a piece of cream coloured A5 card – is one of a series of 13 cards sent to authors and illustrators by Waterstones Booksellers for their What’s Your Story? charity auction.
Other people taking part in the project include Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing, playwright Tom Stoppard and novelist Margaret Atwood – who is to fill out her card remotely using a robotic arm controlled by computer linkup.
Proceeds from the What’s Your Story? auction – which will take place at Waterstones in London on June 10 – will go to the writers’ association English PEN and the Dyslexia Action charity.
Copies of the cards will be collated into a book available in August. Rowling and her fictional wizard have also created fresh controversy in the US state of Missouri.
Librarian Deborah L. Smith is suing her former employers at the Poplar Bluff Library because she refused to take part in a night to promote Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Smith, a member of the Southern Baptist church, claimed the night “violated her sincerely held religious beliefs against the worship of the occult and the promotion of such worship”.
Rowling has previously ruled out writing another full-length novel in the Harry Potter series.
