The heat is on in the Potter world, with the play in two parts ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ due to open in London today, 30 July 2016, and the ‘book of the play’ (a co-production of J.K. Rowling and scriptwriter Jack Thorne) going on sale the day after.
Joanne Rowling thus continues Harry’s story into his later life as an adult and parent, without breaking the letter of her promise that the seventh Potter book would be the last, as this is a stage play and thus belongs to a different genre.
For those who read Portuguese, on 23 July 2016 the Lisbon weekly ‘Expresso’ published an interesting article linking the launch with J.K. Rowling’s seminal (pre-Harry) time in Portugal, when she lived in Porto as an English teacher.
I am pleased and grateful to note that this article refers to a publication of mine on the same subject from 2003. Indeed, this is the second time ‘Expresso’ mentions that article, the first time having been in 2009. I believe I may mention this second citation, as times change and neither the Potter world nor the Muggle world are as they were in 2009! What is cited from my piece is the connection I suggested between the name Salazar Slytherin and the Portuguese dictator António Salazar: and as we know from the Potter books and from the world around us, dictatorship and totalitarianism in general are, alas, not going to disappear tomorrow …
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Details and url for the ‘Expresso’ article:
Rui Duarte Silva, ‘Porto vai ter mimos para a geração Potter [‘Porto to flatter the Potter generation’], ‘Expresso’, 23 July 2016
http://expresso.sapo.pt/sociedade/2016-07-23-O-Porto-vai-ter-mimos-para-a-geracao-Potter
and for my own text:
‘An English Teacher in Porto: In Search of Joanne Rowling’, ‘Lingua Franca’ (Brussels), Vol. 6, No. 1, 2003, pp. 4-8; on-line with photos at:
Dr Christopher Rollason: BILINGUAL CULTURE BLOG - ENGLISH/SPANISH - CASTELLANO/INGLÉS 