Author(s): Ben Hills

History

Diana, Princess of Wales, had it easy compared with another lonely princess, Crown Princess Masako of Japan. A thoroughly modern woman in collision with an ancient and unreformed system, Masako is a brilliant woman who sacrificed her career to marry a love-struck royal, Crown Prince Naruhito. Ben Hills' Princess Masako steals a fascinating look behind the Chrysanthemum Curtain into the arcane world of the Japanese royal family. This dramatic portrayal of a modern-day oriental fairytale turned on its head details how Masako Owada struggles with the daily pressures of life in Japan's imperial court. Despite an Oxford and Harvard education, she has been subjected to the superstitious rites of the royal household agency in the hope that she will produce a male heir and prevent the world's oldest dynasty from dying out. With every move monitored closely by an overbearing bureaucracy behind the walls of a palace modelled on Versailles, where her few officially sanctioned pastimes include writing sonnets, Masako's figure radiates despair as she tries to forge a modern life within the tightly controlled realm of the palace. Inevitably, the strain has had an enormous impact on Masako. She is plagued with illnesses of all kinds, although the royal palace will not admit it. Ben Hills' fascinating portrait of Masako and the Chrysanthemum Throne sheds light on the Royal family's darkest secrets. Why did Kunaicho, the powerful bureaucrats of the Imperial Household Agency, oppose the marriage? Who are the faceless figures who persuaded Masako to give up her career and marry the prince? What is the real reason Masako had to abandon her studies at Oxford? Why does the throne refuse to discuss whether IVF was used to help the couple conceive their child? Why does it refuse to acknowledge Masako's illness, so evident to outsiders? What does the future hold for the star-crossed couple - and now with the birth of baby Prince Hisahito (son of Naruhito's brother Prince Akishino and his wife, Princess Kiko) is the royal family still in crisis?