J.K. Rowling just released a new book and from the looks of it, she's clearly taking the old adage to "write about what you know" very seriously.
People of color called out Rowling's racism for decades—almost since the moment her first bestseller hit book shelves—but it wasn't until Rowling started putting her bigotry on public display that the wider world took notice.
Her latest book, The Ink Black Heart, is the latest addition to her crime fiction series about private investigator Cormoran Strike that Rowling writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It's about a beloved fantasy series creator whose fandom deems her transphobic.
The synopsis, included below, is very clear about this:
"When frantic, disheveled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott [Strike’s colleague] doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation."
"The co-creator of a popular cartoon, ‘The Ink Black Heart,’ Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity."
The Edie character—which Rowling insists bears no similarities to her own life—is deemed as racist, ableist and transphobic by her viewers and experiences the dark side of internet fame as she faces death threats before she is actually killed, which kicks off the novel's main mystery.
If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because Rowling—best known as the author of the beloved Harry Potter children's fantasy series—has repeatedly come under fire for her racism, homophobia, ableism and anti-transgender views and her responses to proposed changes to gender recognition laws in the United Kingdom as well as her views on sex and gender.
Rowling's statements have divided feminists and Harry Potter fans, fueled debates on freedom of speech, academic freedom and cancel culture, and prompted support for transgender people from the literary, arts and culture sectors including the stars of the films based on her books.
Over the last few years, Rowling has argued against the inclusion of transgender women in women's restrooms and promoted stereotypes about transgender people, as when she included a cross-dressing killer in her previous Galbraith novel Troubled Blood.
Rowling's "Robert Galbraith" pseudonym is also controversial because it is also the name of the long-discredited psychiatrist Robert Galbraith Heath, who is considered the father of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy after he claimed to have converted a homosexual man to heterosexuality by putting deep brain stimulation electrodes into his brain and stimulating them whenever the patient was shown heterosexual pornographic material.
Twitter users quickly called out Rowling, mocking her and her book.
Rowling's views have proven so controversial that she declined to be part of HBO's Harry Potter reunion special that was broadcast in December 2021.
Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the series, condemned Rowling's many transphobic comments, saying transgender people "deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are."
Similarly, Daniel Radcliffe, who played the title character, responded to a lengthy essay Rowling published in defense of her anti-transgender views, stressing transgender women are women and statements to the contrary erase "the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter."
Rowling walked the red carpet for the release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore earlier this year, but the film had a disappointing opening, grossing less than any film in the Potter franchise to date.
