Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (original title in English, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), is the third book in the Harry Potter literary series, written by British author J. K. Rowling in 1999.

The book was published in the UK on July 8, 1999 by Bloomsbury Publishers and in the US on September 8 by Scholastic. 1 2 3 4 This was Rowling's fastest writing book, as it ended in just a year after I started writing it. The book sold 68,000 copies in its first three days of release in the UK, and has since sold 3 million more.5 The book won the 1999 Whitbread Book Awards (now called the Costa Books Awards), the Bram Prize Stoker, the Locus Award for the best fantasy novel in 2000, among others.

The prisoner of Azkaban narrates the events that happen throughout the third year of its protagonist, Harry Potter, at Hogwarts School. Although the antagonist of the series, Lord Voldemort, does not appear in the novel, the plot presents a new situation of risk for the central character: Sirius Black, one of Voldemort's assassins, escapes from Azkaban prison to assassinate Harry and leave the way clear for the return of his master to power. The authorities of the magical community react to the news by surrounding the school and other places of their jurisdiction with the dementors, dark creatures who act as jailers in Azkaban.

The story addresses other issues such as the growth of its main characters from the perspective of the bildungsroman or training novel; the latter was one of the main elements that director Alfonso Cuarón rescued in his 2004 film adaptation. In turn, new characters such as Remus Lupine, Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black are presented in this book, whose bond with Harry is fundamental for the development of this episode and future installments of the series.