Michiko Inukai

Michiko Inukai (犬養 道子, Inukai Michiko, born 20 April 1921) is a Japanese Roman Catholic author and philanthropist. She is the founder of the Michiko Inukai Foundation, which provides financial aid for refugees seeking education.

Biography

Michiko Inukai was born in Yotsuya, Tokyo, the eldest daughter of a politician Takeru Inukai and his wife Nakako. Her grandfathers were Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai and Baron Shokichi Nagayo. She has a brother Yasuhiko Inukai, a journalist who later became president of Kyodo News, and a half sister Kazu Ando, an essayist. Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, is Michiko's first cousin once removed.

Having graduated from Gakushuin Girls' School and Tsuda College, Michiko Inukai went to study philosophy in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948. In 1959, she was sent to Europe as a correspondent for Chuokoronsha.

Her first book Ojosan Horoki was published in 1958, and she has since written essays about Bible and Christianity. Her bestseller Hanabana to Hoshiboshi to was featured in a TV drama in 1978.

Inukai started charity in 1979. In 1983, she founded the Michiko Inukai Foundation to provide aid for refugees and internally displaced people in collaboration with the Jesuit Refugee Service. The foundation also manages a computer school in Romania.

Works

• Ojosan Horoki, 1958
• Onna ga Soto ni Deru Toki, 1964
• Watashi no Amerika (My America), 1966
• Hanabana to Hoshiboshi to, 1970
• Shin'yaku Seisho Monogatari (New Testament Stories), 1976
• Kyuyaku Seisho Monogatari (Old Testament Stories), 1977
• Kawaku Daichi - Ningen no Daichi, 1989
• Aru Rekishi no Musume, 1995
• Seisho o Tabisuru, 1996
• Josei e no Junana no Tegami (Seventeen Letters for Women), 1998
• Mirai kara no Kako, 2001
• Kokoro no Zahyojiku, 2006