num_pages: 497
description: According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha" does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means "artisan" or "artist." We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto. She is nine years old. In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow. She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival. Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara. And Memoirs of a Geisha is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive.
language: English
title: Memoirs of a Geisha
titlecomplete: Memoirs of a Geisha
characters: Pumpkin, Ichiro Tanaka, Hatsumono, Dr. Crab, Mr. Bekku, Ken Iwamura, Sayuri Nitta, Mameha, Toshikazu Nobu
genres: Romance, Historical Fiction, Adult, Japan, Adult Fiction, Historical, Classics, Novels, Fiction, Asia
ratings_count: 1958096
places: Japan, Kyoto
publisher: Vintage