Fukiko Aoki is a trailblazing NY-based Japanese investigative journalist. 

Known for tackling hard-hitting topics head on, she is renowned for her 17 meticulously researched books on subjects ranging from war crimes uncovered during the US occupation of Japan to Amelia Earhart as well as essay-style nonfiction reportage from NY. She has written numerous articles for major newspapers and magazines throughout Japan.

Fukiko was born on July 7, 1948 in Tokyo.  Her storied career began as a music journalist covering new artists and music exploding out of Tokyo.  She left her job to focus solely on her first book published in 1981, which told the story of Kyoichi Sawada, a Pulitzer Prize winning Japanese photographer, who died on the frontlines in Cambodia while covering the Vietnam War. She moved to New York in 1984 as NY Bureau Chief for Newsweek Japan and three years later married Pete Hamill, the legendary Brooklyn-born journalist and novelist.

After leaving Newsweek, she became a full-time freelance investigative journalist and writer. Through the 1980s and 90s she consistently wrote serialized articles about reporting the U.S. for the weeklies as Shukan Bunshun and major newspapers.  She covered a wide range of topics including violence directed at Japanese in the U.S., 9-11, terrorism and U.S. intelligence agencies. 

She turned her focus to the U.S. occupation of Japan and uncovered how the former Japanese army's biological warfare "Unit 731" made backroom deals with the U.S. Her book Unit 731 revealed the diabolical mission of Shiro Ishii and his germ warfare unit (Shinchosha, 2005; and Shincho Bunko, 2008). This work was followed by: Occupation History Pursuit: Newsweek Tokyo Bureau Chief Compton Pakenham's Intelligence Diary (Shinchosha, 2011; and Shincho Bunko, 2013).  In 2015, she published a decade’s worth of research regarding the relationship between Miki Sawada, the heir to one of Japan’s zaibatsu(conglomerate) fortunes, and the GHQ, with special focus on the orphanage Sawada found to care for dozens of half-American children fathered by US soldiers during the occupation (Shinchosha, 2015; and Shincho Bunko, 2018).  Since the presidential election in November 2016, she wrote serialized column “Trump's America from New York” in Foresight magazine for one year.  

Having recently published a memoir of her 33-year marriage to Pete Hamill, she is now curating 40 years worth of research into a new book, which is sure to make waves across the world.