NEW YORK: Top-selling US magazine Entertainment Weekly named J.K. Rowling its entertainer of the year on Monday, describing the British creator of the phenomenally-successful Harry Potter books as a visionary. “Not only do (her) novels feel timeless, but they also manage to speak to today’s fraught world,” the magazine said in its latest edition.

“We pay tribute to the world’s most famous author who brought the most beloved and profitable book series of all time to a sentimental and elegant close,” it said, describing Rowling as “not an individual, but a visionary.”

It named Hollywood actors Matt Damon and Johnny Depp and musicians Carrie Underwood and Kanye West among its most popular “for the sole reason that they’ve been able to win over both the masses and the critics — a huge feat.”

And in its “Most Buzzed About” category, the magazine singled out British singer Amy Winehouse, who it said “has become as famous for her train wreck of a personal life as well as for her music.”—AFP