Rowling has been the subject of vicious hate campaigns on social media from critics who accuse her of transphobia. She has also been accused of stoking controversy by tweeting her views on women’s rights.

“We should question ourselves most when we receive a rush of adrenaline by doing or saying something. Many people mistake that rush of adrenaline for the voice of conscience: ‘I got a rush from saying that. I’m right’.

“In my world view, conscience speaks in a very small and inconvenient voice, and it’s normally saying to you, ‘Think again. Look more deeply. Consider this’.”

Rowling also addressed book burning. On Twitter, some of her critics have threatened to destroy their copies of the Harry Potter books.

The podcast also revisits the author’s first brush with controversy, when evangelical Christians burned her books in the early 2000s and tried to ban them from libraries on the grounds that they were promoting witchcraft.

Asked about that early backlash, the 57-year-old said: “There is no book on this planet that I would burn, including books that I do think are damaging. Burning, to me, is the last resort of people who cannot argue.”

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In the interview, conducted at Rowling’s Edinburgh home, the author discussed her first marriage to Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese journalist.

She claimed the marriage turned “very violent and very controlling” and that at one stage, Arantes hid her early Harry Potter manuscript to prevent her leaving.

“I would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day so he wouldn’t realise anything was missing, and I would photocopy it in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by bit.

“The photocopied manuscript grew and grew because I suspected that if I wasn’t able to get out with everything, he would burn it or take it or hold it hostage,” she claimed.

Arantes has previously said of the domestic abuse allegations: “It is true I slapped her. But I didn’t abuse her.”

Rowling left Arantes and moved to the UK. She is now married to her second husband, Neil Murray.

The Telegraph, London

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