It's impossible to bring up the subject of geishas without
mentioning Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, but fascinating
and beautifully written though that book is it would be a shame if
its success was at the expense of this marvellous factual memoir,
written by the very woman who inspired Golden. Mineko Iwasaki is,
by her own admission, probably the most famous geisha - or geiko,
to use the correct designation - of her generation. What makes her
account so different from Golden's book is the fact that she is so
aware of the conflict between the highly secretive, traditional
world of the karyukai and the modern society that was developing
around her in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the most truly
fascinating aspects of this autobiography is not so much the
astonishing detail of the rigorous aesthetic and physical demands
made upon these young artists (the prurient should note once and
for all that 'geisha' does not in any way equate to 'courtesan'!),
as much of that is now known to us through other accounts, but the
conflicting emotional demands placed on Iwasaki by her calling, her
family, and, ultimately, her desire for freedom. An exceptionally
beautiful young child, she was selected early to become the
successor - the head of the family - of a particular geisha house
(okiya) in Kyoto, and was legally adopted by the owner. (To
understand how she was able to bear to leave her family in such
circumstances, one has to be aware of the debt of honour owed by
her family to the okiya after an elder sister left under a cloud.)
The interiors, the dances, the theatre, the kimono: all are
described in such loving and beautiful detail that you are truly
transported into a different world. Yet, when Iwasaki describes her
decision not just to leave the profession (she became an art
dealer, married and had a child) but to close down the okiya when
she was just 30 years old, one begins to understand her frustration
with the archaic system and its failure to respond to the demands
of late 20th-century society. A must-read. (Kirkus UK)
The extraordinary, bestselling memoir from Japan's foremost geisha.
'A glimpse into the exotic, mysterious, tinged-with-eroticism world
of the almost mythical geisha' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail '[An]
eloquent and innovative memoir' The Times 'I can identify the exact
moment when things began to change. It was a cold winter afternoon.
I had just turned three.' Emerging shyly from her hiding place,
Mineko encounters Madam Oima, the formidable proprietress of a
prolific geisha house in Gion. Madam Oima is mesmerised by the
child's black hair and black eyes: she has found her successor. And
so Mineko is gently, but firmly, prised away from her parents to
embark on an extraordinary profession, of which she will become the
best. But even if you are exquisitely beautiful and the darling of
the okiya, the life of a geisha is one of gruelling demands. And
Mineko must first contend with her bitterly jealous sister who is
determined to sabotage her success . . . Captivating and poignant,
Geisha of Gion tells of Mineko's ascendancy to fame and her
ultimate decision to leave the profession she found so
constricting. After centuries of mystery Mineko is the only geisha
to speak out. This is the true story she has long wanted to tell
and the one that the West has long wanted to hear.
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