A Japanese publisher has canceled plans to publish a translation of Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne following protests from the Japanese government.

The biography, written by Australian journalist Ben Hills, was released by Random House in December and claims to lift the veil of secrecy shrouding Japan’s royal family. The book is billed on the cover as “the tragic, true story” of the 43-year-old princess, a Harvard graduate who abandoned a diplomatic career to marry royalty, and describes her a virtual captive of the imperial palace who has been bullied by bureaucrats into depression.

Hills said in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Saturday that he was “very surprised and disappointed” by publishing house Kodansha Ltd.’s decision. “We regard this as a blatant attack on freedom of speech.”

He hoped to publish the book through another publisher with “the courage,” Hills said. “The Japanese people have the right to know what is going in their royal family.”

Criticising the emperor was regarded as serious crime in the first half of the 20th century and there is still a strong tradition of deference to the country’s royal family today. Japan’s Imperial Household Agency and its Foreign Ministry had demanded an apology from the author for “disrespectful descriptions, distortions of facts and judgemental assertions with audacious conjectures and coarse logic,” although government officials were unable to identify most of the passages they found problematic. The government has also complained to Random House in Sydney.

Hills said earlier this week that he and Random House stand by the accuracy of the book, had no intention of apologising and that the government was trying to pressure Kodansha to shelve the Japanese version of the book.

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