Little, Brown to publish Rowling speech

Little, Brown Book Group is to publish an illustrated edition of a speech J K Rowling gave to Harvard University.

Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination uses the speech Rowling made to graduating students at Harvard in 2008.

It will be illustrated by Joel Holland, with 90% of the proceeds from the sales of the book going to Lumos, Rowling’s charity which helps disadvantaged children. The remaining 10% will be donated to university-wide financial aid at Harvard University.

Little, Brown Book Group and Little, Brown & Company in the US are also making a donation to Lumos.

Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said: “I have heard and read many commencement speeches, none more moving and memorable than J K Rowling’s. Years after her visit to Harvard, people still talk about it—and still find inspiration in her singular evocation of the idea that living a meaningful life so often means daring to risk failure. What a powerful example she embodies, and what a remarkable gift her speech was, and is, for all of us privileged to hear it then—and to read it now.”

Rowling’s Harvard commencement speech can be viewed online.

Very Good Lives will be published worldwide in English, as a £9.99 hardback and in e-book on 14th April 2015.