This is the kind of book that you just have to persuade your
spouse, friends, colleagues, relations or even chance acquaintances
to read. It sets itself up as a transcript of the memoirs of a
genuine geisha, as told to an American professor of Japanese
history. Gradually an extraordinary story unfolds, revealing the
tragic, touching tale of the transformation of Chiyo, the daughter
of a poor fisherman into Sayuri, a renowned and much sought-after
geisha in Kyoto in the 1930s. The story, told without
sentimentality, delves beneath the glamorous, erotic facade of
these immaculate women constrained by centuries of tradition, rules
and regulations, to expose the grim reality of their lives. Our
heroine, like the rest of her fellow geishas, is chained to the
profession thrust upon her, by insurmountable debts accrued
forcibly in her name. Behind the elegant and delicious images of
Japanese prints lies hidden a world of intrigue, formality and
cruelty. An altogether remarkable and riveting account that has one
almost believing it really is a true autobiography. The sheer bulk
of fascinating, often painful, yet sometimes joyful, detail of this
uniquely Japanese stylized way of life woven into the gentle
Sayuri's story make fascinating and enthralling reading. Review by
SOPHIE GRIGSON (Kirkus UK)
A seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, that tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York; it exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha - dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men.
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