London – J.K. Rowling announced Wednesday that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts I & II will be released in book form on July 31, as part of Harry’s birthday celebration. The author of the globally acclaimed novel series announced last year that the sequel would be released as a play opening in London on July 30 at the Palace Theater.
The book, a script version of the already sold-out play, will be published globally as digital eBook and in physical form in North America and Britain, Reuters reported. Rowling wrote the new story alongside English playwright Jack Thorne and Tony award-winner theater director John Tiffany, but they never intended to release it as a book.
David Shelley, chief executive of Little, Brown Book Group, said in a statement the script was being published because Rowling and her team had received a tremendous number of appeals from fans around the world who will not be able to see the play in London.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is set 19 years after Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows, whose epilog states that Harry had married Ginny Weasley and they had two sons, Albus Severus and James, and a daughter named Lily.
The play of Cursed Child stars Jamie Parker as Potter, Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger and Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley. According to Huffington Post, Rowling said in October the reason the story exists is that the right people came up with a fantastic idea about how to tell it on stage.
“I’m confident that when audiences see ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ they will understand why we chose to tell this story in this way”, she expressed.
Susan L. Jurevics, CEO of Rowling’s online home base Pottermore, said in an announcement on the site that she believes the eighth Harry Potter story will be read and enjoyed by a much wider audience.
Thanks to Rowling’s engagement with her fans, the Wizarding World has certainly become part of more than one generation, since the Harry Potter series are far from ending even after Curse Child. The children and little siblings of fans who read the books as they were kids are still able to fall in love with Rowling’s beloved world, especially this year.
Set in New York, the prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will hit theaters on Nov. 18. The film will star Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, Colin Farrell and Ron Perlman.
Jurevics said Pottermore will soon release more content initiatives that will not only thrill and engage Wizarding World’s huge global audience, but also create new ones.
The website published a short synopsis of Harry Potter and the Curse Child:
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
Source: Washington Post