Photo/Illutration Fukiko Aoki (Kenji Takigami)

Fukiko Aoki has finally published a book about her childhood hero and the killer who took that legend away from the world 45 years ago.

Aoki, 77, has long been interested in music.

She became infatuated with the Beatles in 1963 after hearing “Please Please Me” when she was a third-year junior high school student. And she ended up writing music articles for a magazine in Japan.

At this job, on Dec. 8, 1980, she heard on the radio that John Lennon had been shot dead in New York.

Despite her deep shock, she immediately flew to the United States to cover the story.

She attended the trial of Mark David Chapman, who was charged with murdering Lennon.

After Chapman’s guilty sentence was finalized and he was imprisoned, Aoki sent him a letter asking for an interview.

She received a reply and could have met him in prison, but she refrained from going, fearful about what he might do.

She later moved to the Big Apple as chief of Newsweek Japan’s New York bureau. In 1987, she married noted New York-based columnist Pete Hamill.

Eight years ago, as Aoki was going through things preparing for a move, she found a letter that Lennon had sent to her husband.

That led her to resume her reporting on Chapman. She met him two years later in prison, escorted there by Chapman’s wife.

Chapman told her she was the most persistent reporter he had ever met. Aoki also interviewed Chapman’s wife, who was Japanese American.

Hamill died in 2020.

But Aoki overcame her grief, and in December this year, she published “John Lennon: Unmei wo Tadoru” (John Lennon: pursuing his destiny).

The book includes an account of how Lennon reunited with his father as well as other recently uncovered facts.

“Writing a book about John was also a task of pursuing my own life by returning to when I was young and thinking about becoming a writer,” she said.

Related News