The Times newspaper has a new article listing the “Top 50 People of the Decade.”

J.K. ROWLING Author and philanthropist

Although the Boy Wizard first appeared in the late Nineties, it was in the Noughties that J.K. Rowling became a Muggle of international renown, when the first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was released as a film in 2001. By the time the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, appeared, Rowling had sold 400 million books in 67 languages. Child readers became teenagers along with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

An unwitting populariser of witchcraft and boarding schools, Rowling agreed to her publisher’s request to use initials of indeterminate sex so the name “Joanne” would not put off boy fans, and she controlled her burgeoning £4 billion franchise with an iron hand. She oversaw the film scripts, insisted on a British cast and tearfully defended herself in court when another author threatened to publish a Potter “Lexicon”. Rowling has successfully stayed out of the public eye by never courting personal publicity, and has two children with her second husband. The Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling’s personal fortune at £560 million, ranking her as the 12th richest woman in Britain. She gives £5 million a year to her charity, which supports many causes including one-parent families, which she herself was when she wrote the first Potter in an Edinburgh café with her baby at her side. Kate Muir

Thanks TLC!