Japanese TV personality Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s Totto-chan memoir earns Guinness record

Japanese television personality Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s popular childhood memoir Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window is the most published autobiography written by a single author, Guinness World Records said on Monday.

As of the end of September, more than 25.1 million copies have been published worldwide, with the book translated in more than 20 languages and selling over 8 million copies in Japan alone, according to the world-record recognising authority and Japanese publisher Kodansha.

“I am glad that readers overseas appear to have embraced it as well,” Kuroyanagi said through Kodansha.

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The bestselling book was first published in 1981, and a sequel issued in October has already surpassed the half-million mark. An animated film of the original book, depicting her unconventional school life during the period around World War II, hit screens across Japan on December 8.