Ayako Sono


Ayako Sono was a Japanese writer. She published numerous novels, essays and articles between the 1950s and the early 2020s.
Sono was also considered to be nationalist and conservative. She drawn controversy for advocating for a system similar to South Africa's apartheid for Japan's immigrants. She had also advocated for women to quit their jobs after becoming pregnant.

Life and career

Sono was born in 1931. She went to the Catholic Sacred Heart School in Tokyo after elementary school.
During World War II, she evacuated to Kanazawa. After writing for the fanzines La Mancha and Shin-Shicho, she was recommended by Masao Yamakawa, an established critic at the time, to Mita Bungaku, for which she wrote Enrai No Kyaku Tachi, one of the shortlisted stories for the Akutagawa Prize in 1954. In 1953, she married Shumon Miura, one of the members of Shin-Shicho.
The naming of The Bas Bleu Era by the writer and critic Yoshimi Usui described the prosperous activities of female writers including Sono and Sawako Ariyoshi—one of her contemporaries who had published many reputable books that are still being read.
In the history of Japanese literature, Sono belongs to the category of "the Third Generation" together with Shūsaku Endō, Shōtarō Yasuoka, Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Nobuo Kojima, Junzo Shono, Keitaro Kondo, Hiroyuki Agawa, Shumon Miura, Tan Onuma, and Toshio Shimao.
She was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 1979. She founded an NGO named “Kaigai-senkyosha-katsudo-enjo-koenkai” to help Japanese missionaries devoting their lifetime in foreign countries.
In 2000, she welcomed Alberto Fujimori, ex-President of Peru from 1990 to 2000, to stay at her house after his exile.
She was selected as a Person of Cultural Merits in 2003, following her husband's honor in 1999.

Politics

After the death of Ryoichi Sasakawa, one of the biggest rightist leaders, Sono took over his position as the head of the Nippon Foundation in 1996. The foundation's funds come from 3 percent of the profits of the boat races all over Japan. As the chairperson, she focused on welfare and assistance of undeveloped countries, until 30 June 2005, when her term of office finally expired after nine and a half years. The position of the foundation chairman was taken over by Yohei Sasakawa.
She was nominated as director of the Japan Post Holding Co.'s board by Shizuka Kamei, minister in charge of postal reform, in October 2009.
She was appointed to one of 15 members of an education reform panel in January 2013, a position from which she resigned in October of that year.
Sono drew criticism for a column she wrote in the Japanese far-right Sankei Shimbun newspaper in February 2015, in which she held South Africa's apartheid as an example of how Japan should handle immigration. She stated that while she was "supportive" of the "need to bring in immigrants to ease the shortage of workers to care for Japan's ballooning elderly population", she also advocated non-Asian immigrants such as whites and blacks to Japan be separated from the general population and made to live in special zones amongst themselves.
On February 28, 2025, Sono died at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 93.

Works

Novels

Her major novels include

Short stories

  • Nagai-kurai-fuyu, which is known as a masterpiece and anthologized often
  • Rakuyō-no-koe, which describes the end of Father Maximilian Kolbe
  • Tadami-gawa, which sings of a love torn apart by World War II

Essays

  • The two million bestseller Dare-no-tame-ni-aisuruka?
  • Kairō-roku on the way how we behave in old age
  • II-hito-o-yameruto-raku-ni-naru , a collection of epigrams
  • "Ningen no Bunzai." A collection of writings.