Author Description

"Ben Hill's portrait of Princess Masako and the Chrysanthemum Throne draws on research in Tokyo and rural Japan, at Harvard and Oxford, and on more than sixty interviews with Japanese, American, British, and Australian sources - Masako's and Naruhito's friends, teachers, and former colleagues. Many of them have never spoken publicly before, and they now shed light on the royal family's darkest secrets, secrets that can never be discussed openly in Japan because of the reverence in which the emperor and his family are held. Princess Masako poses questions that few in Japan would dare to ask, about the role of the emperor, the place of women, attitudes toward mental health and IVF, and the power of the bureaucracy. But above all, this is a story about a love affair that went tragically wrong."--BOOK JACKET.