Description

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the real confessions of 1 of Japan's most famous geisha.Speaking to us with the wisdom old and in a voice at the same time haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in an undesirable fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she's obtained from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal only a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the cash that goes with it. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a global where appearances are paramount; where a woman's virginity is auctioned to the greatest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the absolute most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion.