An intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono from the bestselling author of Beautiful Boy

John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world’s most famous unknown artist. ‘Everybody knows her name, but no one knows what she does.’ She has only been important to history insofar as she impacted Lennon. Throughout her life, Yoko has been a caricature, curiosity and often a villain – an inscrutable seductress, manipulating con artist and caterwauling fraud. The Lennon / Beatles saga is one of the greatest stories ever told, but Yoko’s part has been missing – hidden in John’s formidable shadow, further obscured by flagrant misogyny and racism. This definitive biography of Yoko Ono’s life changes that. In this book, Yoko Ono takes centre stage.

Yoko’s life, independent of Lennon, was an amazing journey. Yoko spans from her birth to wealthy parents in pre-war Tokyo, her refugee status during the war, and her arrival onto the avant-garde art scene in London, Tokyo and New York City. It delves into her groundbreaking art, music, feminism and activism. We see how she coped under the most intense, relentless and cynical microscope as she was saddled with the most heinous crime imaginable then: breaking up the greatest rock-and-roll band in history.

We see Yoko Ono through her own eyes, from a vantage point we have never seen before. Drawing from Yoko’s personal letters, journals, films and videos and unpublished manuscripts, as well as access to her surviving family, closest friends, past collaborators and enemies, David Sheff covers the 90 years of Yoko’s rollercoaster life.

Yoko is a harrowing, moving, propulsive and vastly entertaining biography of a woman whose story has never been accurately told. The book not only rehabilitates Yoko Ono’s reputation but elevates it to iconic status.