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 Africa's apartheid as an example. The comments drew widespread criticism. Works Novels Her major novels include Tamayura (たまゆら: Transience), which portrays the nihilistic daily life of man and woman Satōgashi ga Kowareru Toki (砂糖菓子が壊れるとき: When a Sweetmeat Breaks), modeled on Marilyn Monroe and made into a film starring Ayako Wakao Mumeihi (無名碑: A Nameless Monument), featuring the construction sites of the Tagokura Dam and the Asian Highway Kizu-tsuita-ashi (傷ついた葦: Bruised Reed), which describes in a most dry style a life of a Catholic father Kyokō-no-ie (虚構の家: The House of Fiction), a bestseller depicting domestic violence Tarō-Monogatari (太郎物語: Taro Story), which features her son Taro as the protagonist Kami-No-Yogoreta-Te (神の汚れた手: The Soiled Hands of the god, translated into English as The Watcher from the Shore ()), on the theme abortion and dignity of life problems, with a gynecologist as the protagonist Tenjō-no-ao (天上の青: Heavenly Blue, translated into English as No Reason for Murder (), 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 (狂王ヘロデ: Herod the Mad), 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" (hole). Aika (哀歌: Lamentations), a record of the dramatic experience of a nun Haruna, who encountered the Rwanda Genocide. Kiseki (奇蹟: Miracles, translated into English as Miracles: A Novel ()), 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 (長い暗い冬: Long, Dark Winter), which is known as a masterpiece and anthologized often Rakuyō-no-koe (落葉の声: The Voice of Falling Leaves), which describes the end of Father Maximilian Kolbe Tadami-gawa (只見川: The River Tadami), which sings