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. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read 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.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN-10
0679781587
ISBN-13
9780679781585
eBay Product ID (ePID)
719495
Product Key Features
Book Title
Memoirs of a Geisha : a Novel
Author
Arthur Golden
Format
Trade Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Literary, Biographical, Historical
Publication Year
1999
Genre
Fiction
Number of Pages
448 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
8in
Item Height
0.9in
Item Width
5.2in
Item Weight
11.4 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
Ps3557.O35926m45
Reviews
"Astonishing . . . breathtaking . . . You are seduced completely." -Washington Post Book World "Captivating, minutely imagined . . . a novel that refuses to stay shut." -Newsweek "A story with the social vibrancy and narrative sweep of a much-loved 19th century bildungsroman. . . . This is a high-wire act. . . . Rarely has a world so closed and foreign been evoked with such natural assurance." -The New Yorker From the Trade Paperback edition., "Astonishing . . . breathtaking . . . You are seduced completely." -Washington Post Book World "Captivating, minutely imagined . . . a novel that refuses to stay shut." -Newsweek "A story with the social vibrancy and narrative sweep of a much-loved 19th century bildungsroman. . . . This is a high-wire act. . . . Rarely has a world so closed and foreign been evoked with such natural assurance." -The New Yorker