American · b. 1956
American author best known for Memoirs of a Geisha, his debut novel set in the secretive world of geisha culture in pre-war and wartime Japan.
Arthur Golden was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1956. He studied art history at Harvard, then Japanese history at Columbia, where he received a master’s degree. He also studied Mandarin at Beijing University and worked in Tokyo before returning to the United States to study English at Boston University. This immersion in Japanese culture and language shaped the research behind his debut novel.
Memoirs of a Geisha was published in 1997 after nearly a decade of research and multiple drafts. Golden spent years interviewing Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha, whose life and world informed much of the novel’s detail. The book became an international bestseller, translated into thirty-two languages. A 2005 film adaptation starred Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, and Ken Watanabe.
Golden has published no other novels since Memoirs of a Geisha, making it one of the most successful single-novel literary careers in recent publishing history.
by Arthur Golden
The fictional autobiography of Sayuri, a geisha in the Gion district of Kyoto, from the 1920s through post-war Japan — a world of rigorous training, patron rivalries, and hidden lives.
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Where to start with Arthur Golden — how to approach Memoirs of a Geisha, his essential novel about Japanese geisha culture. A complete reading guide.
guide
Arthur Golden has published one novel — Memoirs of a Geisha (1997). This guide covers the book, its context, and what to read if you loved it.
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