Memoirs of a Geisha: The Literary Sensation and Runaway Bestseller
Dec 2008 · Random House
4.7star
199 reviewsreport
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512
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About this ebook
'An epic tale and a brutal evocation of a disappearing world' The Times
Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, Memoirs of a Geisha uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation.
From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as a servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. Telling her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York, each page exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha: dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men.
Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, Memoirs of a Geisha uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation.
From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as a servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. Telling her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York, each page exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha: dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men.
Ratings and reviews
4.7
199 reviews
Laura White
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November 21, 2022
Amazing! Read this book in 24hours! My dad studied this book in his degree and I saw him read it as a kid. I always wanted to read it, and I'm so glad I decided to! It's just so well written, descriptive and evocative...an education on a Geisha's life and struggles, and life in Japan pre and post WW2.
Jenna Shin
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February 3, 2013
i couldn't believe at first that this breath taking novel that grasped me from the first page that also gave me an excellent insight into geisha's life was actually a fiction written by an american man. Well done arthur golden! this novel will always be one of my favourites.
1 person found this review helpful
Amy Birkett
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July 9, 2020
This book drew me in and held me in Gion, mostly on my breaks at work. I felt Sayuris emotions as if they were my own throughout the book and thoroughly enjoyed every second.
2 people found this review helpful
About the author
Arthur Golden was born and brought up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is a 1978 graduate of Harvard College with a degree in art history, specialising in Japanese art. In 1980 he earned an MA in Japanese history from Columbia where he also learned Mandarin Chinese.
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