J.K. Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy is set in the fictional village of Pagford.
Published in 2012, The Casual Vacancy was Rowling’s first novel written for adults after the Harry Potter series. It follows residents of Pagford, a small English community whose apparent calm is disrupted by a vacancy on the local parish council.
The story examines class divisions, local politics, poverty, addiction and strained family relationships. Pagford is fictional, so it is not an identifiable real English village, although the novel uses recognizable features of contemporary British community life.
Readers sometimes connect Pagford with Rowling’s earlier fictional locations, such as Little Whinging, where Harry lives with the Dursleys. They serve different literary purposes: Little Whinging belongs to the Harry Potter books, while Pagford is the central setting of The Casual Vacancy.