Arthur Golden is best known for Memoirs of a Geisha, a historical novel set largely in Kyoto before and after the Second World War. The story follows Chiyo, a girl sold into a geisha household who later becomes known as Sayuri, tracing her training in music, dance and social performance as well as rivalries and financial pressures within the geisha district. The novel uses a first-person retrospective voice and concentrates on the routines, hierarchies and personal calculations of a highly structured profession. Its setting moves through pre-war Japan, wartime disruption and the changes that follow the conflict. Golden's work is most relevant to historical fiction centred on twentieth-century Japan, women's lives and closed social worlds, and may interest readers of Lisa See and Gail Tsukiyama. Read more Less
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