Ayako Sono

Ayako Sono (Japanese曾 野 绫 子, Ayako Sono, really: Chizuko Miura (三浦 知 寿 子, Miura Chizuko ), born September 17, 1931 in Katsushika, Tokyo ) is a Japanese writer.

Sono attended a Catholic girls' school in Tokyo, where she graduated with a BA in English. In 1948 she was converted to the Catholic faith, 1953, she married the literary critic and writer Shumon Miura. Began in 1949 during their high school time to write, as the only female member of a group of authors.

For Enrai kyaku no - tachi (遠来 の 客 たち) it was in 1954 nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. In several of her books she reflected her devotion to the Catholic faith. In the early 1970s published a seven and a twelve-volume edition selection of their works. In 1974 she received an audience with Pope Paul VI .. In 1982, she traveled 45 days in the footsteps of Paul through the Middle East.

In 1980, she refused to accept the women's literature prize, which was to be given her for the book Kami no te yogoreta (神 の 汚れ た 手). In 1993 she received the Onshi - shō ( Imperial Price ) of the Japan Academy of Arts. In 2003 she was awarded the Bunka Kōrōsha (person with special cultural merits ). In 2012, she received the Kikuchi Kan Prize "for their many years of service as a writer, critic, social problems and their devotional activities in the framework of relief with jomas for distressed countries of the Third World."

Works (selection)

• Koromoyama, translated by Hans -Michael Schlarb, in: Tadao Arai, Ekkehard May ( ed. ): Time of cicadas. Japanese reading book, Munich, Piper, S. 225-231

• A reunion, translated by Heinz Haase, In: Marianne Bretschneider, Heinz Haase: explorations. 19 Japanese narrator, Berlin, people and the world, 1989, pp. 256-270