J K Rowling Denies That The Character in ‘The Ink Black Heart’ is Based on Her Life Experiences

J K Rowling has found herself in controversy once again! Her new book ‘The Ink Black Heart’ hit stores on Tuesday and has been termed as transphobic by certain audiences. Rowling has written the book under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. 

Some viewers note that one of the characters in the book, Edie Ledwell, has been inspired by her own life experiences. The character dies after being persecuted online by trolls after one of his cartoons he created is termed as racist, ableist, and transphobic. 

Even Rowling has experienced the wrath of fans for expressing her transphobic views in recent years. Over a span of time Rowling has garnered a reputation of being transphobic by the LGBTQ community as well as by some other stars such as Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint. She’s even received death threats. 

The writer faced backlash for supporting Maya Forstater, a researcher who lost her job for posting transphobic tweets. 

The author has clarified that the character in the new book hasn’t been created from her own life experiences as she had written the book before the events happened to her. 

"I have never created a book – and this book certainly isn’t created from my own experience – you know, with a view to talking about my own life," she wrote online. "That doesn’t mean, of course, that your own life experience isn’t in the book."

She responded to followers using her pen name, “With this book – I had been planning this book for so long and then a couple of the things that happen in this book have since happened to me. And so, I would like to be very clear that I haven’t written this book as an answer to anything that happened to me. 

"Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were – are you clairvoyant? I wasn’t clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like."

Rowling’s book release has taken Twitter by storm with hashtags #IStandWithJKRowling and #ICantStandJKRowling trending. 

In Graham Norton’s radio show she expressed: “I said to my husband, 'I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,' but it genuinely wasn't," she said. "The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened."