It's the fantasy of many young women: marry a handsome prince, move into a luxurious palace, and live happily ever after. But that's not how it turned out for Masako Owada, a thoroughly modern woman in collision with an ancient system.

Stealing a look into the mysterious world of the Japanese royal family, Princess Masako details the pressure that the Royal Household Agency has placed on the princess to produce a male heir and prevent the world's oldest royal dynasty from dying out, and reveals the impact that the birth of a male son to her sister-in-law Princess Kiko has had on Masako's troubled life, and on any hopes she might have had for her daughter, little Aiko, to be Japan's reigning empress.

It's the fantasy of many young women: marry a handsome prince, move into a luxurious palace, and live happily ever after. But that's not how it turned out for Masako Owada, a thoroughly modern woman in collision with an ancient system.

Stealing a look into the mysterious world of the Japanese royal family, Princess Masako details the pressure that the Royal Household Agency has placed on the princess to produce a male heir and prevent the world's oldest royal dynasty from dying out, and reveals the impact that the birth of a male son to her sister-in-law Princess Kiko has had on Masako's troubled life, and on any hopes she might have had for her daughter, little Aiko, to be Japan's reigning empress.

In a new afterword, Ben Hills recounts how this book came to be banned in Japan (it is only now being published in Japanese), a captivating story in its own right.

BEN HILLS, one of Australia's leading investigative journalists and foreign correspondents, is a winner of the Walkley Award (Australia's Pulitzer) and the Graham Perkin Award for Australian Journalist of the Year. From 1992 to 1995, he was Japan correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, also covering China, Siberia, and North and South Korea. His previous books are Japan: Behind the Lines, an account of his three years as a correspondent in Japan, and Blue Murder, a chronicle of the battle for justice by victims of CSR's Wittenoom asbestos mine in Western Australia.

Map of Japan

Genealogy of the Japanese Imperial Family

Preface

1. The Men in Black

2. Daddy's Girl

3. Mummy's Boy

The Last Emperor

4. Magna Cum Laude

5. The Dreaming Spires

By Royal Appointment

6. The Pledge

7. Heir Unapparent

8. The Hand of God

9. The Black Dog

10. No Happy Ending

Epilogue

Glossary

References

Index