Autobiography of a Geisha

by Sayo Masuda and Sayo Masuda

Book Overview

The glamorous world of big-city geisha is familiar to many readers, but little has been written of the life of hardship and pain led by the hot-springs-resort geisha. Indentured to geisha houses by families in desperate poverty, deprived of freedom and identity, these young women lived in a world of sex for sale, unadorned by the trappings of wealth and celebrity. Sayo Masuda has written the first full-length autobiography of a former hot-springs-resort...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231129505
• ISBN13: 9780231129503
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 7.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Very insightful

I just fell in love with sayo and her tenacity to live, her drive to work for others first then herself. I highly recommend this read!!

Deeply Moving

I was curious about a perspective on the real life of an "average" geisha and picked this up. Amazing...the translation is very well done and is quite "real". Highly recommended and it's relatively short length makes it a quick and wonderful read.

Should be Required Reading

We should keep in mind, Memoirs of a Geisha was written about a fictional character. In this book, we explore the sad life of a real character, in this instance, a hot springs geisha (or more accurately, a glorified prostitute). Her candor and reflection were fascinating. We should not expect a historical account of events from an uneducated victim of indentured servitude. I did, however, get more than I expected in the way of storytelling, as perceived by the author. If anything is the biographical counterpart to Goldman's book, this one is...absent the fancies of fiction. The author wishes to escape her past now and has surrounded herself only with people who know nothing of her past. I only hope she has recorded her life after this book ends so that when she leaves us, the rest of her story is not lost. Of all the books I have read on this subject, I enjoyed this one the most.

A look at a less-explored sort of geisha life

If you've read MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and GEISHA: A LIFE, by Arthur Golden and Mineko Iwasaki respectively, then your image of geisha is probably one of a world of glamor--high-status, highly-trained women existing in a world of glitter and flash, dealing with celebrities, scientists, movie stars of the stage and screen, mistresses of their chosen arts, and honored for their talents. While this may be true of Kyoto geisha, this experience is not representative of all geisha, or even most geisha, as Sayo Masuda's book demonstrates clearly. Masuda was a hot-springs geisha, sold into servitude at the age of twelve, to a place as different from the glamor centers of Kyoto as it is possible to get. Though she was trained in shamisen and dance, the sexual aspect of her profession was at least as important as the artistic aspect, and she routinely met with cruelty, poverty and hunger. I won't say this book shows what the life of a geisha was "really" like--Mineko's autobiography demonstrates that the glamor world of Kyoto was a real one. But it was not the only one, or even the majority one, and for a more comprehensive view of a different kind of geisha, this book here is indispensible. If Kyoto is all you know of the "flower and willow world," I recommend that you pick up Sayo Masuda's work, and expand your horizons.

An Unapologetic Look at a Difficult Life

This book deserves a lot of publicity and has gone unrecognized for far too long. Masuda's account of a difficult (to say the least) existence as a geisha in a small town in Japan in unapologetic and strangely elegant. Her writing style is spare but she knows just how to convey each experience so that the full impact hits the reader. For someone supposedly so uneducated, Masuda's painfully-acquired wisdom lives on each and every page.

I became quite introspective after reading this...

I HIGHLY recommend this book! Not particularly for its information about geisha. There are other books with more facts. The factual information was good, and quite a bit different from the usual song and dance of most books about geisha (in that I can truly feel and understand what it is she is feeling; it's a book about a person not an occupation). The footnotes at the back of the book were fascinating and provide a lot of sources for further reading that I had not been exposed to from prior books I had read about geisha. It isn't a "geisha do this, geisha do that" type of book. It's the story of one woman who just happened to be a geisha, but more than anything she was human. The writing is quite fluid. It's a really good translation! It's not dry or awkward in the least. This books "speaks." I truly "feel" a real person talking (and it's a translation, too!). From reading this book, I saw someone whose life was definitely not "cherries jubilee" but worked hard, tried hard, still failed, gave up sometimes, but managed to get by. I saw someone who saw the ugliest aspects of human nature, but still saw the beauty as well. I wish the book was longer. Her life is fascinating! It's quite a detailed account with lots of anecdotes, thoughts and feelings. Boy, were things different in her time (as compared to modern day geisha!)! This isn't Kyoto...or is it?After reading this book, I realized all the things in life that I take for granted and that I shouldn't. I really should step back, take a good look at things and try to make someone I love's life better. It's one of those rare books that makes one take a step back and reassess their lives. I'm really glad that I read it. I might read it again tonight...(Oh, there are no pictures of geisha in this book; just a few of places. I don't think this is for people who want a "coffee table" type book. It's not an "I love dancing and art so I became a geisha" book either. She doesn't much talk about dancing or art at all.)