Emperor Showa’s monologue sells at $275,000 at NY auction

December 7, 2017

New York- What is believed to be the original of a monologue of late Japanese Emperor Hirohito sold for 275,000 dollars at a Bonhams auction in New York on Wednesday.

Japanese plastic surgeon Katsuya Takasu, who runs Takasu Clinic, claimed on his blog that he won the auction, adding that he will return the document, "Showa Tenno Dokuhakuroku" in Japanese, or The Emperor's Monologue, to the Imperial Family.

Comprising two volumes with a total of 173 pages, the monologue shows thoughts given by Emperor Hirohito, posthumously called Emperor Showa, in his own words on momentous events before, during and after World War II.

It was written by late diplomat Hidenari Terasaki, one of aides to the Emperor, and published in an edition of Bungeishunju, a Japanese monthly magazine, in 1990.

According to the auction house, the original manuscript had been kept by a relative of Terasaki in the United States after his death.

The monologue is "the only extant full record of the Emperor's spoken memoirs" and constitutes "a key resource for the understanding of 20th-century Japanese history," Bonhams said. Jiji Press