A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.

Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it.

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.

阿瑟·高頓（Arthur Golden），生於美國田納西州查塔努加（Chattanooga），本科畢業於哈佛大學藝術史係，專攻日本藝術。1980年，獲哥倫比亞大學日本史碩士學位，兼修中文。在北京大學進修一個夏季之後，他到東京工作。迴到美國後他在波士頓大學獲英文碩士學位。目前他與妻子和兩個孩子定居馬薩諸塞州布魯剋林。《藝伎迴憶錄》是其發錶的第一部長篇小說。