Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by American author Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first person perspective, tells the fictional story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II. It contains many Japanese terms for aspects of the geisha culture, occasionally using the Kyoto counterparts. In 2005, a film version was released. Sakamoto Chiyo, a girl from the poverty-stricken fishing village of Yoroido on the coast of the Sea of Japan, is sold into an okiya in Gion, the most prominent hanamachi in Kyoto when she is nine years old. Her mother is dying... of bone cancer and her older sister Satsu is not sold into the Nitta okiya with her. Determined to run away, Chiyo lives in the okiya as a geisha alongside another young girl Pumpkin, the elderly and grumbling Granny, the money-obsessed Mother, the okiya's mistress, and Auntie, a failed geisha. Also living in the okiya is the famous ill-mannered geisha Hatsumomo. Chiyo plans to leave the okiya and settle back to her sister Satsu, but is caught when she falls off the roof and breaks her arm.
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| Author: | Arthur Golden |
| Genre: | Historical novel |
| Year published: | 1997 |
| Number of editions: | 13 |