Must not be named?: JK Rowling has a pseudonym

Robert Galbraith, whose debut novel The Cuckoo’s Calling was published in April, was unknown in literary circles till Sunday. Although his book was well received by critics, it sold a meagre 1,500 copies. Today, it tops the Amazon charts. How?

Well, on Sunday, we learnt that Galbraith is actually none other than J K Rowling, author of the epic Harry Potter series. She used a pseudonym to write about a war veteran-turned-private investigator, Cormoran Strike. The sales of the book are up by a maths-boggling 5,07,000 per cent, whatever that amounts to. By adopting a nom de plume, she follows in the footsteps of writers such as George Eliot (born Mary Anne Evans), George Orwell (originally Eric Arthur Blair) and Charles Dodgson (who wrote as Lewis Carroll).

Rowling had “hoped to keep this secret a little longer” and it was a “liberating experience” to “publish without hype and expectation, and for the pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name”.

Who can blame her? After churning out the mammoth Potter saga for her gazillion fans, she probably longed to don that good old invisibility cloak to have some respite from the limelight. Rowling wished the secret prevailed a little longer. Her naivety would be forgiven if only she realised that America’s secretive NSA knew it all along. Now, don’t ask how.