J.K. Rowling announces 8th ‘Harry Potter’ book
When die-hard “Harry Potter” fans first heard that J.K. Rowling was writing a sequel to her beloved seven-part series, they couldn’t wait to get their hands on the book. Then they realized the sequel wasn’t going to be a book at all — it was a play.
“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is set to debut
in London at the Palace Theatre on Harry’s birthday, July 30.
But Wednesay, Rowling announced that the script of the play will in fact be released as a two-part book, at 12:01 a.m. on July 31.
“Pottermore is proud to be a key part of the multi-platform effort that will allow the epic eighth Harry Potter story to be read and enjoyed by a wider, global audience,” said Susan L. Jurevics, CEO of J.K. Rowling’s online home base Pottermore in an announcement on the site.
The play was not written by Rowling herself. English playwright Jack Thorne wrote the script based on “an original new story” Rowling wrote with Thorne and theater director John Tiffany. It is set 19 years after the end of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the series’ final book. Harry is “an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three schoolage children.”
In the prologue to “Deathly Hallows,” readers learned that Harry had married Ginny Weasley and together they had two sons, Albus and Severus, and a daughter, Lily.
The play and book won’t be the only Potter-related releases this year. “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a movie based on one of Rowling’s short “Harry Potter” companion books, hits theaters Nov. 18.