JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, has come out about her former husband's abuse, claiming he tried to hide the unpublished copy of the first book in order to keep her from leaving him. The author characterised her relationship with Jorge Arantes as violent and controlling in the Witch Trials of JK Rowling, a podcast series released on Tuesday, adding she had to sneak pages of the work away in small batches to photocopy in case he burnt them.
"At this point, every time I come home, he searches my handbag. I don't have a key to my own front door because he has to control it. And I don't think he's a moron. I think he knew, or suspected, that I was going to flee again," she said.
Rowling described living with Arantes in "a horrible state of tension" because she had to hide her wish to leave him. "Yet, the manuscript kept on growing. I would keep writing. In reality, he knew how much that manuscript mattered to me because he had taken it and hid it, and that was his hostage."
Growing increasingly desperate to leave, she would covertly "take a few pages of the book into work every day - just a few pages so that he wouldn't discover anything was missing - and photocopy it".
"And gradually, in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by little, a photocopied text developed and grew and grew, because I suspected that if I didn't get everything out, he would burn it, seize it, or keep it hostage," she added.
"That manuscript was still very important to me. That was the item that I prioritised for saving. Beyond that, obviously, the only thing I prioritised was my daughter, but she's still inside me at that point, so she's as safe as can be in that situation."
Rowling was conversing with Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, which is notorious for its harsh views and regular rallies against the LGBT and other marginalised communities. Phelps-Roper wrote Unfollow, a memoir about her experience "loving and leaving extremism," after leaving in 2012.
In a series of tweets about the podcast series, Rowling said she agreed to take part after Phelps-Roper reached her because she felt the pair could have a "real, interesting, two-sided conversation that might prove constructive".
(With Inputs From Agencies)