Stealing a look behind the "Chrysanthemum Curtain" into the mysterious world of the Japanese royal family, Princes 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 dynasty from dying out." "Some thought the princess would be a breath of fresh air in the musty corridors of this 2,600-year-old monarchy, but thirteen years later and now at age forty-two, Masako is a tragic figure whose struggles with depression have made international headlines. This book reveals the impact that the recent 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 first empress." "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

班．希爾斯（Ben Hills）

澳洲知名記者，也是經驗豐富的國際特派員，曾報導戰爭、選舉、醜聞、名流與社會議題。由於記者工作，在過去三十幾年間走訪瞭五十多個國傢，七○年代深耕於倫敦，旁及中東與非洲，八○年代於香港，九○年代則報導日本德仁皇太子與雅子妃的皇室新聞。曾獲素有澳洲普立茲獎之稱的「沃爾剋雷新聞獎（Walkley Award）」。著有《Japan: Behind the Lines》，該書攝影師為作者的日本籍妻子，報導日本社會文化在多事的一九九三年至一九九六年之間所受到的衝擊與轉變（政府變動三次、死亡人數高達六韆的大地震、地鐵毒氣事件、二次大戰終戰五十週年）。