JK Rowling Is Back With A Surprise New Story

Author J.K. Rowling is weaving her particular kind of magic yet again! She has been keeping the wizarding world spirit alive throughout the pandemic, sharing her celebrated work via the Harry Potter At Home online hub.

Now, the author has revealed that she is publishing a brand new story, 13 years after the final instalment of the insanely popular Harry Potter series. This one, however, bears no resemblance to her previous bestsellers - and has no wizardry or witchcraft!

The new, stand-alone tale, The Ickabog, was in fact written over a decade ago, as a bedtime story for her own children. “For the last few weeks I’ve been immersed in a fictional world I thought I’d never enter again," she said.

Rowling has dusted off the draft, breathing new life into the narrative with the help of her brood, and is again offering her work for free online to get us through these tough times.

The lockdown has "been very hard on children, in particular," Rowling added, "so I brought The Ickabog down from the attic, read it for the first time in years, rewrote bits of it and then read it to my children again. They told me to put back in some bits they’d liked when they were little, and here we are!"

Set in an imaginary land, the fairytale is a children's fable “about truth and the abuse of power”. The first two instalments - Chapter 1: King Fred the Fearless and Chapter 2: The Ickabog - are now available online at The Ickabog. Remaining chapters will follow daily until 10th July.

A print version of the story will be out in November.

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