Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, published in 1997, is told in the first person by Nitta Sayuri. The account begins in 1929, when Chiyo's father sells her and her sister; Chiyo is nine. The two girls are taken from the coastal fishing village of Yoroido to Kyoto by train, and Chiyo is placed in the Nitta okiya, a geisha boarding house in the Gion district, to be trained as a geisha, while her sister goes to a brothel in the city's pleasure district. In the house she is introduced to the women who run it, the strict Auntie and the business-minded Mother, and to the geisha already established there.

Chiyo is trained in music, dance and the etiquette of the teahouses, and she takes the name Sayuri. The novel is concerned with how a geisha's career is put together over the years, including the training, the patrons and the money that underwrites it, and with the rivalries and obligations among the women of Gion. The story runs from the fishing village through the war years and the decades on either side of them, following Sayuri before, during and after the Second World War.

A feature film of Memoirs of a Geisha followed in 2005, with Rob Marshall directing and Zhang Ziyi in the leading role.