Memoirs of a Geisha 1997
- Social life and customs, Literature, Open Library Staff Picks, Prostitution
A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken 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 just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction--at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful--and completely unforgettable.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Character
Grave, earnest, classical in form and meticulous.
- gravecomic
- earnestironic
- classical in formformally daring
- rawmeticulous
- warmbleak
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About the book
- Author
- Arthur Golden
- First published
- 1997
- Pages
- 512
- Publisher
- Kitabkhana Mili Iran, Albatros, Chatto & Windus
- Editions
- 103
- Language
- Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Chinese
- ISBN
- 9780099275992
Where to read
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On Open Library, 127 have read it and 336 want to.
“Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so . . . was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon.”
Arthur Sulzberger Golden is an American writer. He is the author of the bestselling novel *Memoirs of a Geisha* (1997).
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