(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-24 10:00

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said she contemplated suicide as she suffered from depression before her rise to success, according to an interview with a student journalist.

The British writer said she had suicidal thoughts in her mid-20s, when she was a single mother and struggling to establish a literary career.

"Mid-20s life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted," Rowling said, according to an interview posted online by student journalist Adeel Amini.

Rowling said in the interview, parts of which were published in Edinburgh University's Student magazine, that she sought help from doctors and spent nine months receiving cognitive behavioral therapy, according to Amini.

"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable'," Rowling was quoted as saying.

Amini provided an audio file of his 29-minute conversation with Rowling.

Rowling has previously said she suffered depression before her Harry Potter series brought her international success. She has acknowledged that characters featured in the series called Dementors were inspired by her illness.

The author has said she sought medical help following her separation from first husband, Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese journalist.

Amini said in an e-mail that he had carried out the interview in Edinburgh last month.

Fortune magazine ranks Rowling, who wrote seven Harry Potter novels, as one of the richest women in Britain, with an estimated wealth of 504 million pounds ($1 billion).

Agencies

(China Daily 03/24/2008 page6)