JK Rowling has recently released her latest book in the Cormoran Strike series, The Ink Black Heart, but you won't see her name emblazoned on the cover. Instead, the Harry Potter author has again gone in disguise as Robert Galbraith.
When Robert Galbraith's debut novel, A Cuckoo's Calling, was released in April 2013, it sold 1,500 copies. Curious about the identity of the mysterious crime writer, an alleged military man, many began digging and it wasn't long before he was unmasked as being a pen name.
The Sunday Times ultimately "outed" the author as being the pseudonym of JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter. But it left many fans asking, why Robert Galbraith?
Read more: Edinburgh author JK Rowling finally confirms reason she wasn't in Harry Potter reunion
In an interview on her website, Rowling says the decision to create a male alter ego was to "take my writing persona as far away as possible from me, so a male pseudonym seemed a good idea. It doesn’t consciously change the way I write - I think I write differently because it’s a very different genre."
When it came to picking the actual name, JK explains that Robert is one of her favourite men's names because Robert F Kennedy is her hero. She adds that "mercifully" she hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the Potter series or The Casual Vacancy.
Rowling adds: "Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. When I was a child, I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why.
"I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed because I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. Be that as it may, the name had a fascination for me.
"I actually considered calling myself L A Galbraith for the Strike series. But for fairly obvious reasons decided that initials were a bad idea."
She finishes: "Odder still, there was a well-known economist called J K Galbraith, something I only remembered by the time it was far too late. I was completely paranoid that people might take this as a clue and land at my real identity, but thankfully nobody was looking that deeply at the author’s name."
The author faced scrutiny for her choice of pen name recently after it emerged that a gay conversion therapist carries the same name. Robert Galbraith Heath was an American psychiatrist who carried out experiments that would now be considered deeply unethical.
However, Rowling and her representatives have denied that the author was aware of Robert Galbraith Heath when choosing the pseudonym. They say: "Any assertion that there is a connection is unfounded and untrue."
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