Tetsuko Kuroyanagi 黑柳徹子

 Royalty Income: 3.65 million yuan (US$0.57 million)

Bestseller: "Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window"

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Born in 1933, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi is a Japanese children's book writer, actress, talk show host and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Kuroyanagi rose to fame in 1976 when she began to host Japan's first TV talk-show program "Tetsuko's Room," which is still on air today. In April this year, the program entered the Guinness World Records as the world's greatest number of broadcasts (8,961 episodes) with the same host.

In 1981, Kuroyanagi published her children's book, "Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window," in which the writer recalled her experiences and her teacher Sosaku Kobayashi at Tomoe Gakuen Elementary School during World War II. With the book, she showed that children's education should be integrated with fun, freedom and love. The book became an instant bestseller in Japan and is credited as one of the world's most influential works in the 20th century.