What was the issue? So, I foolishly tried to ask and I got screamed at for not knowing. “I was just curious because I couldn’t understand why two groups of people whom I like and admire, namely feminists and trans people, were all shouting at each other. He has grappled with the issue of transitioning, most publicly on Twitter, when he admitted struggling to understand the furore about JK Rowling’s insistence that women, not people, menstruate. “It hasn’t happened yet… but it would be difficult, as it is difficult in our world,” he says. Given that daemons take the opposite gender to their human counterpart, I am curious whether he has tackled what happens if a character is not comfortable with their assigned gender. ‘With Covid we’re all reduced to a tweet’ “You don’t say, ‘Here’s a nice, new book all about depression! You’ll enjoy this!’” Literature often ignores depression, he thinks, “because it’s off-putting”. Pullman has his own demons – “I’ve had my own bouts with melancholia and various things”. Lyra’s daemon, for Pullman, is a useful metaphor – “for a psychological, emotional state that she hadn’t known before you could call it depression or melancholy”. Because I have other things I want to write.” “I’m still dealing with the results in the book I’m writing,” he says.

Pullman describes “discovering how the crack” in the duo’s partnership that emerged in Serpentine became a “gulf” when he imagined her as a young adult. Soul proprietor: Lyra’s relationship with her daemon plays out (Photo: BBC) He is currently trying to finish the third instalment of The Book of Dust, which began with a prequel to Northern Lights before rejoining Lyra at university, grappling with her broken relationship with Pantalaimon in The Secret Commonwealth.

Philip pullman trilogy book of dust