‘Vacancy’ for return to Potter world as Rowling book debuts

JK Rowling has left “the door ajar” for a return to the world of Harry Potter but said there would be no more books about the wizard.

Rowling, 47, who has amassed a fortune estimated to be over €775m from her seven Harry Potter books and all the spin-off rights, said her success had “liberated” her.

The writer, whose first book for adults is published today, told the BBC: “There’s only one reason to write now — for me”.

Rowling said it was “murder” saying goodbye to her most famous character, adding: “But truly, where Harry’s story is concerned, I’m done. I just think it would be for the sake of milking it and that’s just not in me.”

She said: “Now, having said all of that, I have always left the door ajar because I’m not that cruel. If I had a fabulous idea that came out of that world, because I loved writing it, I would do it. But I’ve got to have a great idea, I don’t want to go mechanically into that world and pick up odds and ends and glue them together and say, ‘here we go, we can sell this’.”

Rowling said she was tempted to rewrite some of the books in what she described as “a director’s cut” because she had written them too quickly and said the next book she wrote would be for slightly younger children than her Harry Potter audience.

The Casual Vacancy, Rowling’s first full-length book in five years, goes on sale today and is a guaranteed bestseller.

Details are few and far between and its publishers have gone to extreme lengths to keep it under wraps.

Booksellers took delivery of the books yesterday and the sealed boxes were to be opened only minutes before shops open.

Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, said she hoped readers would be “open-minded” about Rowling’s change of direction.

The new novel has been described as a “blackly comic” tale about an idyllic town ripped apart by an election. It is set in Pagford, a dreamy spot with a cobbled market square and ancient abbey which becomes a town at war with itself.

The book, to be published simultaneously in e-book and audio formats, begins with the unexpected death of Barry Fairweather, whose demise in his early-40s leaves a space on the parish council.

Rowling said her success had made her “the freest author in the world”, saying: “My bills are paid — we all know I can pay my bills — I was under contract to no one, and the feeling of having all of these characters in my head and knowing no one else knew a damned thing about them was amazing ... Pagford was mine, just mine, for five years. I wrote this novel as exactly what I wanted to write.”