Ayako Sono

Life

Works

Novels

• Tamayura , which portrays the nihilistic daily life of man and woman
• Satōgashi ga Kowareru Toki, modeled on Marilyn Monroe and made into a film starring Ayako Wakao
• Mumeihi , featuring the construction sites of the Tagokura Dam and the Asian Highway
• Kizu-tsuita-ashi , which describes in a most dry style a life of a Catholic father
• Kyokō-no-ie , a bestseller depicting domestic violence
• Tarō-Monogatari , which features her son Taro as the protagonist
• Kami-No-Yogoreta-Te ), on the theme abortion and dignity of life problems, with a gynecologist as the protagonist
• Tenjō-no-ao , a crime novel based on real serial murder and rape cases by a man named Kiyoshi Ōkubo, which tries to describe the extremity of love
• Kyō-ō-Herode , which portrays the half life of Herod the Great, who is notorious for the Massacre of the Innocents, through the eye of a mute lute player called "Ana".
• Aika , a record of the dramatic experience of a nun Haruna, who encountered the Rwanda Genocide.
• Kiseki ), a work of travel fiction set in Poland and Italy in pursuit of the miracles ascribed to St. Maximilian Kolbe

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.

  Political and social activities

• Sono is also known as a conservative.
• In 2000, she welcomed Alberto Fujimori, ex-President of Peru, to stay at her house.
• After the death of Ryoichi Sasakawa, one of the biggest rightist leaders, Sono took over his position as the head of the Nippon Foundation, whose funds come from 3 percent of the profits of the boat races all over Japan. As the chairperson, she had 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 founded an NGO named “Kaigai-senkyosha-katsudo-enjo-koenkai” to help Japanese missionaries devoting their lifetime in foreign countries.
• She has been selected as a Person of Cultural Merits in 2003, following her husband's honor in 1999.
• 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.
• She believes women have no right to work after giving birth and should quit their jobs upon becoming pregnant.
• In her regular column in the Sankei Shimbun on 11 February 2015, Sono advocated that immigrants in Japan be assigned separate living zones segregated by race, citing South African Apartheid as an example. The comments drew widespread criticism.